There has been a lot of ammunition recently for those of us (and there are many) who believe the music industry’s attempts to shut down file sharing, stop people from listening on various devices, sue thousands of individuals, stop technological progress, and lobby for new laws to back them up are unrealistic and totally out of tune with reality.

Just released studies by CRIA actually suggest that file sharing leads to shoplifting and cheating in schools – and is leading to the moral decay of society.

A record label claimed that putting copy protection on a particular CD was a “mistake” after the group that recorded it published a way around the copy protection.

Warner music complains that Apple is not charging enough for iTunes downloads, and threatens to pull their music from their service – seemingly on the assumption that iTunes sales drive iPod sales – not the reverse.

Follow the links below for more details on those – each one mocking the industry.

Read a Michael Geist comment on the CRIA studies
Read a Techdirt comment on the copy protection mistake
Read a Techdirt comment on Warner and iTunes

That is the title to a book now available from Irwin Law. It was written by 19 Canadian academics in response to the current draft Copyright legislation.

It is published under a creative commons license (as this blog is). In practical terms this means one can download portions of the book to read.

It would be a worthwhile read by anyone interested in Canadian Copyright issues.

Look at the book at the Irwin Law site

Within the last few days we have seen announcements that:

- The Motorola Q Windows Mobile 2005 smartphone will be available in December, not Q1 2006 as earlier announced.

- Palm will produce a Treo version with Windows Mobile 2005 software.

- The next gen Blackberry will use a next gen Intel chip.

This bodes well for consumer and business users alike as these competing devices and platforms compete for market share. Many people are staunchly devoted to their device of choice (Palm, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile), but features, ease of use, and price are important factors.

I believe the market for these devices has only scratched the surface so far.

And if anyone cares, I’m in the Windows Mobile camp. I’ve had both palm and windows based pda’s – and much prefer the Windows versions. I currently use an Audiovox 5600 Windows Mobile smartphone – and while it is the best device I have had so far – I’d love to get my hands on the Motorola Q.

Read a CNews article on Motorola Q timing
Read an engadget post on the Blackberry/Intel deal
Read a Wired post about the Palm/Windows deal

David Fraser has a post entitled Effect of privacy/security incidents on stock prices in his Canadian Privacy Law Blog.

It reinforces the concept that doing privacy and security badly, or suffering a breach, can indeed impact the bottom line of any business – large or small. I have seen price reduction formulas applied to small business sales due to inadequate privacy policies.

The “headline risk” of privacy and security breaches is significant.

He points to an article that takes the position that privacy and security breaches can in many cases affect a business’s reputation so much that it will lower its stock price.

David adds that in his opinion, if your business is a critical service provider to other businesses, you may risk losing significant contracts if you suffer a privacy/security breach.

Read David’s post

David Canton – For the London Free Press – September 24, 2005

Read this on Canoe

One of the effects of Bill C-60, the proposed Canadian copyright reform bill, is to give photographers the ownership of photographs they take — even if commissioned by a third party.

This means the copyright in the family portrait will belong to the photographer — not you.

Since the photographer will own the photographs, the photographer is free to do whatever he or she wishes to do with them — including using them as a sample of his or her work or selling it to third parties for commercial purposes.

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I am not a fan of DRM (digital rights management). DRM allows the creator/publisher of music, video, or any data file for that matter to control what we do with it after we buy it. DRM for the most part just frustrates legitimate users. And most DRM can be defeated – hence the desire for those supporting DRM to get laws passed that make it an offense to defeat it.

Techdirt has a great post that says that DRM actually encourages piracy. It says in part:

I recently bought a car. In the copious documentation that came with it, nowhere did it say I couldn’t drive the car only in reverse, on dirt roads, without pants, or on Wednesdays. As far as I can tell, I can do pretty much whatever I want with that car, and the people that sold it to me don’t have any say in the matter. Apparently any music I buy might not play by the same rules … So I need some sort of permission or approval to use something I’ve purchased however I like, in this case, listen to music on the device of my choice?

Another article today on ZDNet talks about a DRM nightmare, where DRM impedes the use of whole home audio systems.

Read the Techdirt post
Read the ZDNet article

Just a few days ago I wrote about the Ontario Court of Appeal decision that said an Ontario man could not sue the Washington post for defamation, as he did not live in Ontario at the time of publication.

A BC court just decided that a BC resident can sue the NY Post for defamation. The article dealt with the Todd Bertuzzi hockey assault case.

In both instances, the defamation was in the printed newspaper – but the online versions are at issue.

This is not an easy issue to resolve. While one can be sympathetic to the person who has allegedly been defamed, it also opens up the spectre of liability for defamation in any jurisdiction where the person in question resides.

Read a Globe and Mail article
Read a Techdirt post

The Authors Guild in the US has started an action against Google over Google’s plan to scan millions of books. Those books would be searchable by anyone, much like using Google to search the Web.

Google says that while entire books are scanned, for books covered by copyright users will only be able to see limited portions of a book at a time – thus not detracting from book sales. Many author’s and publishers are concerned that may not always be the case, and don’t want entire copies of books to be available on-line.

There is some suggestion that the program has already boosted sales of some obscure book titles.

My personal view (keeping in mind that I authored a book called Legal Landmines in eCommerce, published by McGraw-Hill), is that for books that are still covered by copyright, I welcome the ability for people to be able to find it, search, and see snippets of it. The possibility of the entire book being available on-line to read without compensation is definitely a concern.

It will be interesting to see how the legalities of this pan out.

Read a Wired article about the project
Read a Wired article about the lawsuit

The Ontario Court of Appeal just reversed a decision that gave an Ontario resident the right to sue the Washington Post for libel.

The original decision was controversial as the plaintiff, Bangoura, lived in Africa when the article in question was published, moving to Canada 3 years later.

The Court of Appeal decided that there was not a sufficient connection to Ontario for the case to be heard in Ontario.

The issue is what court(s) should have jurisdiction when libel is alleged for an on-line publication that is accessible around the world. While we have not seen the last of the issue, this decision certainly makes sense.

Read Michael Geist’s analysis
Read the Techdirt view

David Canton – for the London Free Press – September 17, 2005

Read this on Canoe

George Orwell’s novel 1984 is becoming more of a reality with “big brother” seeing and hearing everything.

The federal government is considering new “lawful access” legislation that will allow police and security agencies to conduct surveillance on the Internet without a court order.

The legislation merits serious scrutiny when it is tabled this fall. While nobody wants to make it difficult for police to fight crime, the state’s powers must be balanced with the average person’s rights and freedoms.

They must also be proportionate and relevant to the need and effective to meet the stated purpose. All too often, terrorist events of the last few years have been used to justify increased state powers that may have no real effect to combat terrorism.

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