Law Bytes: Recent Episodes

Michael Geist

In recent years the intersection between law, technology, and policy has exploded as digital policy has become a mainstream concern in Canada and around the world. This podcast explores digital policies in conversations with people studying the legal and policy challenges, set the rules, or are experts in the field. It provides a Canadian perspective, but since the internet is global, examining international developments and Canada’s role in shaping global digital policy is be an important part of the story.

Lawbytes is hosted by Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and where he is a member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society.

Digital sovereignty is hot the digital policy phrase of the moment driving discussion on Canadian digital policy involving AI, digital infrastructure, privacy, and cultural policy among others. Yet despite its widespread use, its meaning remains opaque as it often used to frame – or reframe – longstanding policy positions. The government has begun to flesh out the issue with Treasury Board recently releasing a white paper on digital sovereignty that provides a useful starting point for discussion. Jennifer Pybus, the Canada Research Chair in Data, Democracy and AI at York University joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the white paper and Canada’s digital sovereignty debate.

Bill S-209, the legislative effort to establish age verification requirements for sites and services that are said to facilitate access to pornography, is back. The bill has some modest improvements from the earlier S-210, but the core concerns – overbroad scope that lumps in social media companies, Internet providers, and AI services with pornography sites, the privacy and equity implications of mandated age verification, and the use of nationwide website blocking – remain. Last week, I appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs where I identified many of the concerns with the bill and engaged in a detailed discussion with multiple senators. This week’s Law Bytes podcast goes inside the hearing room for my opening statement and the Q&A with Senators that followed.

Bill C-2, the government’s proposed lawful access legislation, has been the subject of several prior episodes covering warrantless disclosure of information as part of the new information demand power in Part 14 of the bill as well as some of the surveillance technology capabilities found in Part 15. Those remain major issues, but there is another element of the bill that deserves greater attention, particularly at this moment when the Canada – US relationship is increasingly fraught. That issue involves mandated data sharing with implications for Canada’s international treaty obligations under the “Second Additional Protocol” to the Budapest Convention as well as the US Cloud Act. Kate Robertson, a lawyer and senior research associate at the Citizen Lab in the Munk School at the University of Toronto, wrote an extensive brief on these issues soon after the bill was introduced. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about a critical Bill C-2 issue that has thus far attracted limited attention.

The “right to be forgotten” – perhaps better characterized as a right to de-index - has been a hotly debated privacy issue for well over a decade now, pitting those that argue that the harms that may come from the amplification of outdated but accurate content outweighs the benefits of maintaining such content in search indexes. The issue gets its start in Europe, but the Canadian experience has featured privacy commissioner findings and investigations alongside court rulings and provincial reforms. Kris Klein is one of Canada’s leading legal experts on privacy, access to information and information security issues. He is the founder and managing partner of nNovation LLP, a leading boutique firm specializing in data protection, the Managing Director of IAPP Canada, and teaches the Privacy Law course at my faculty at the University of Ottawa. He joins me on the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the background behind the right to be forgotten, the recent OPC finding, and what may lie ahead on the issue.

The return of the Law Bytes podcast series this week coincides with the return of Parliament from its summer break. Digital policy may not be at the very top of the legislative agenda, but there are no shortage of issues that could attract attention. This includes lawful access legislation introduced last June, the prospect of online harms safeguards, and ongoing concerns regarding privacy and artificial intelligence regulation. This week’s episode looks ahead to the coming Parliamentary session, assessing the government’s likely digital policy plans.

The government’s unexpected privacy reform agenda includes both lawful access in Bill C-2 and the evisceration of political party privacy in Bill C-4. While Bill C-4 is framed as implementing affordability measures, it also exempts political parties from the application of privacy protections on a retroactive basis dating back to 2000.To examine the importance of political party privacy and the implications of Bill C-4, I’ve teamed up this week with the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association for a joint podcast. Together with Executive Director Jason Woywada we recorded a conversation that touches on data and political parties, the BC litigation that seems to have sparked federal action, and the Bill C-4 provisions. The conversation can be found on both of our podcasts: this Law Bytes episode and BC FIPA Access and Privacy Online podcast.

The battle over a digital services tax has been the subject of Law Bytes podcast episodes for several years as the Canadian government signalled its intent to move ahead with one even as US officials warned of risks of trade retaliation if they did so outside of an international framework. With the DST now in effect, what does trade law have to say and how might the US respond? Meredith Lilly is a full Professor and Simon Reisman Chair in International Economic Policy at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. She joins me on the podcast to discuss the current digital trade policy tensions, what our agreements say about complaints and retaliation, as well as explain why a U.S. response on at least the DST seems likely.

It isn’t news that the Canadian news sector is broken: the Online News Act has caused more harm the good, the dependence on government funding and regulation has grown dramatically and undermined public trust, and implementing Bill C-18 has become mired in controversy. Peter Menzies spent three decades as a working journalist and newspaper executive, most notably with the Calgary Herald where he served as its editorial page editor, editor in chief and, finally, publisher. He then spent another 10 years at the CRTC, including four as Vice Chair of Telecommunications. Peter been one of the most prominent voices on the state of the news sector in Canada and he joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss recent developments alongside proposed reforms that might do a better job of addressing mounting concerns over the independence of the press.

The recent CRTC Bill C-11 decision mandating that streaming services pay 5 percent of their revenues has left seemingly everyone unhappy and sparked multiple legal challenges. While much of the focus has been on video streaming, music was a core part of Bill C-11 and the implications for music streaming services may be the most pronounced. Will Page is the perfect person to unpack these issues. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Tarzan Economics, the former Chief Economist of Spotify and PRS for Music, the co-host the Bubble Trouble podcast and a regular contributor to BBC, Financial Times, and The Economist. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide new data on what the CRTC’s numbers mean and why the decision could ultimately move the Canadian market backwards rather than forward.

Parliament adjourned for the summer last week, meaning both the House of Commons and Senate are largely on hold until mid-September. The Law Bytes podcast focuses intensively on Canadian legislative and digital policy developments and with another Parliamentary year in the books, this week’s episode takes a look back and take stock of where things stand. It features discussion on the implementation of the Internet streaming and news bills (C-11 and C-18) as well as an analysis of the current state of privacy, AI, online harms, and digital tax as found in Bills C-27, C-63, C-69, S-210 and C-27.

The question of copyright and digital locks – technically referred to as anti-circumvention legislation – dates back more than 25 years with creation of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet Treaties and later in Canada with the enactment of the Copyright Modernization Act. The full scope and application of those digital lock rules has been the subject of considerable debate, particularly over how fair dealing fits into the equation. The Federal Court of Canada recently issued a landmark decision on the issue which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. CIPPIC, the University of Ottawa’s public interest technology law clinic, raised the key arguments on the issue in an intervention in the case led by James Plotkin, a partner with the law firm Gowlings, and David Fewer, CIPPIC’s Director and General Counsel. They join the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the ruling and to clear up some of the misinformation that has been circulating since its release.

Last week, the CRTC released its much-anticipated Bill C-11 ruling on the initial mandated contributions from Internet streaming services. While the government focused on the requirement to contribute 5% of Canadian revenues, a closer look revealed the CRTC largely ignored industry data and the actual contributions from Internet streaming services and seemed entirely unconcerned by the effects on competition and consumer costs. Len St-Aubin is the former Director General of Telecommunications Policy at Industry Canada and played a role in the development of both the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act. He provided consulting services to Netflix until 2020 and has since been an active participant in the debate on Internet policy. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the CRTC ruling, the state of TV and film production in Canada, and what may lie ahead for the streamers, creators, and consumers.

Bill S-210, the mandated age verification bill for pornography sites that in reality targets everything from Google Search to Netflix, was expected to be the subject of extensive hearings by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. But after a Conservative filibuster, it appears that there will be only one hearing and that the bill will be reported back to the House unamended. Before that vote, this week’s Law Bytes podcast offers up a “what could have been” hearing on the bill. It features my mock opening statement alongside responses to some of the actual questions raised by MPs on issues such as privacy, website blocking, and poorly defined terms in the bill.

Bill C-27, Canada’s proposed privacy reform and AI regulation bill, continues to slowly work its way through the committee process at the House of Commons with the clause-by-clause review of the AI portion of the bill still weeks or even months away. Recently a group of nearly 60 leading civil society organizations, corporations, experts and academics released an open letter calling on the government to separate the bill into two.

Andrew Clement has been an important voice in that group as he tracked not only the committee hearings but also dug into the consultation process surrounding the bill. Clement is a Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, where he coordinates the Information Policy Research Program and co-founded the Identity Privacy and Security Institute (IPSI). He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about AI regulation in Canada, concerns with the bill, and offers insights into the legislative and consultative process.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently claimed that “we’ve cut the cost of cell phone plans in half since 2019 - in part by increasing competition.” Is that true? What is the real state of Canadian wireless competition and how does pricing compare with other countries? To help answer those questions, this week David Soberman, a Professor of Marketing at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and the Canadian National Chair of Strategic Marketing joins the Law Bytes podcast. Professor Soberman’s research is focused on understanding how the operation of markets is affected by the exchange of information between organizations and customers, relationships within the distribution channel and the introduction of innovations to markets.

Concerns about the impact of social media on youth have been brewing for a long time, but in recent months a new battleground has emerged: the courts, who are home to lawsuits launched by school boards seeking billions in compensation and demands that the social media giants change their products to better protect kids. Those lawsuits have now come to Canada with four Ontario school boards recently filing claims. Robert Diab is a professor of law at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. He writes about constitutional and human rights, as well as topics in law and technology. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide a comparison between the Canadian and US developments, a deep dive into alleged harms and legal arguments behind the claims, and an assessment of the likelihood of success.

A little over five years ago, I launched the Law Bytes podcast with an episode featuring Elizabeth Denham, then the UK’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, who provided her perspective on Canadian privacy law. I must admit that I didn’t know what the future would hold for the podcast, but I certainly did not envision reaching 200 episodes. I think it’s been a fun, entertaining, and educational ride. I’m grateful to the incredible array of guests, to Gerardo Lebron Laboy, who has been there to help produce every episode, and to the listeners who regularly provide great feedback. The podcast this week goes back to where it started with a look at Canadian privacy through the eyes of Europe. It flew under the radar screen for many, but earlier this year the EU concluded that Canada’s privacy law still provides an adequate level of protection for personal information. The decision comes as a bit of surprise to many given that Bill C-27 is currently at clause-by-clause review and there has been years of criticism that the law is outdated. To help understand the importance of the EU adequacy finding and its application to Canada, Colin Bennett, one of the world’s leading authorities on privacy and privacy governance, joins the podcast.

The Online Harms Act – otherwise known as Bill C-63 – is really at least three bills in one. The Law Bytes podcast tackled the Internet platform portion of the bill last month in an episode with Vivek Krishnamurthy and then last week Professor Richard Moon joined to talk about the return of Section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act. Part three may the most controversial: the inclusion of Criminal Code changes that have left even supporters of the bill uncomfortable. Boris Bytensky of the firm Bytensky Shikhman has been a leading Canadian criminal law lawyer for decades and currently serves as President of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association. He joins the podcast to discuss the bill’s Criminal Code reforms as he identifies some of the practical implications that have thus far been largely overlooked in the public debate.

The public debate surrounding Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, has focused primarily on Human Rights Act and Criminal Code reforms. The Human Rights Act changes include the return of Section 13 on hate speech, which was repealed by the Harper government after criticisms that it unduly chilled freedom of expression. To help understand the history of Section 13 and its latest iteration, this week Professor Richard Moon, Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law at the University of Windsor joins the Law Bytes podcast. The Canadian Human Rights Commission asked Professor Moon to conduct a study on Section 13 in 2008 and his report is the leading source on its history and application. In this episode, we discuss that history and consider the benefits and risks of inserting it into Bill C-63.

New legislation making its way through the U.S. Congress has placed a TikTok ban back on the public agenda. The bill – which would lead to either a divestiture or ban – has passed the House of Representatives and is now headed to the Senate. On the Canadian front, TikTok is already prohibited on government devices at the federal level alongside some provinces, the government has quietly conducted a national security review, and there are new calls to ban it altogether from the Canadian market. Anupam Chander is a law professor at Georgetown University and leading expert on the global regulation of new technologies. He joined the Law Bytes podcast several years ago when a TikTok ban was raised by the Trump Administration and he returns this week to discuss the latest developments and their broader implications.

The federal government has struggled to update Canadian privacy laws over the past decade, leaving the Supreme Court as perhaps the leading source of privacy protection. In 2014, the court issued the Spencer decision, which affirmed a reasonable expectation of privacy in basic subscriber information and earlier this month it released the Bykovets decision, which extends the reasonable expectation of privacy to IP addresses.Vibert Jack is the litigation director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, which successfully intervened in the case. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to examine the case, including the evolution of Canadian law, the court's analysis, and the implications of Bykovets for Internet privacy in Canada.

The Online Harms Act is the culmination of years of public debate over whether – or how – the government should establish a regulatory framework for Internet platforms in dealing with online harms. Bill C-63 is already attracting considerable controversy, particularly over proposed changes to the Criminal Code and the Human Rights Act. To help unpack the bill, Vivek Krishnamurthy, an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School, joins this week’s Law Bytes podcast. Vivek is a former colleague and Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic and he served as a Commissioner on the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression and was a member of the government’s Expert Panel on Online Harms.

Twenty years ago today the Supreme Court of Canada released CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada, a decision that stands as perhaps the most consequential in Canadian copyright law history as it would firmly establish fair dealing as a users right and serve as the foundation for copyright law in Canada for decades to come. Leading off the hearing several months earlier for the Law Society was Scott Jolliffe, an IP litigator with the law firm Gowlings. Jolliffe was charged with arguing the fair dealing aspects of the case, but it was only at last moment that users right entered the picture. To mark its 20th anniversary, Jolliffe joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the CCH case, his strategy and insights from the hearing, and his thoughts on its impact many years later.

The government plans to introduce the Online Harms Act later today, bringing forward long-delayed legislation that will include new responsibilities and liabilities for Internet platforms alongside an extensive complaints and enforcement governance structure. What is likely to be Bill C-63 will focus on protecting children online and will be the most contentious of the government’s Internet regulation bills given the challenge of balancing safeguards with freedom of expression. This week’s Law Bytes podcast features a combined backgrounder and preview of the bill as I walk through the years of failed consultations, expert panels, changing ministers, and challenges in bringing it forward, highlight the key issues at stake, and contrast the online harms bill with Bill S-210, which seems destined to share the spotlight.

Bill C-26, alternately described as a cyber-security, critical infrastructure or telecom bill, remains largely below the radar screen despite its serious implications for privacy, expression, and affordable network access. The bill is currently being studied at a House of Commons committee that seems more interested in partisan political gamesmanship rather than substantive hearings. Kate Robertson is lawyer and senior research associate at the Citizen Lab in the Munk School at the University of Toronto who is a former criminal counsel and the co-author of one of the most extensive Bill C-26 committee submissions. She appeared last week at the committee studying the bill, but with limited opportunity to engage on the issues, she joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the bill, the concerns it raises, and some of the potential fixes.

European countries reached agreement late last week on a landmark legislative package to regulate artificial intelligence. AI regulation has emerged as a key issue over the past year as the explosive growth of ChatGPT and other generative AI services have sparked legislation, lawsuits and national consultations. The EU AI Act is heralded as the first of its kind and as a model for Canadian AI rules. Luca Bertuzzi is a Brussels-based tech journalist who was widely regarded as the leading source of information and analysis about the unfolding negotiations involving the EU AI Act. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain the EU process, the ongoing opposition by some countries, and the future steps for AI regulation in Europe.

I’ve described Bill S-210, the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, as the most dangerous Internet bill you’ve never heard of as it contemplates measures that raise privacy concerns, website blocking, and extend far beyond pornography sites to include search and social media. The bill started in the Senate and having passed there is now in the House of Commons, where MPs voted in favour of it at second reading and sent it to committee for further study. Senator Julie Mivelle-Dechêne is the chief architect and lead defender of the bill. A former Radio-Canada broadcaster who was appointed to the Senate by Justin Trudeau in 2018, she joins the Law Bytes podcast to debate her bill as she provides her rationale for it and defends against the criticism and concerns it has sparked.

Canadian digital law and policy in 2023 was marked by so many legislative battles that you needed a scorecard to keep track: Bill C-11 on online streaming, Bill C-18 on online news, and Bill C-27 on privacy and AI were the headliners, but there were notable developments on content regulation, competition, and a digital services tax. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2023, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead in 2024.

The CRTC just concluded a three week hearing on Bill C-11 with its primary focus on the prospect of mandating interim payments by Internet streaming services. The result was predictable as just about everyone made their way to Gatineau to make their case for cash. I appeared for the first time before the CRTC where argued that it should prioritize competition, consumer choice and affordability, recognizing that the emerging system brings with it risks of market exit or higher prices. This week’s Law Bytes episode goes inside the Commission hearing for my opening statement and exchanges with the panel of Commissioners.

The Canadian government tried to salvage the Online News Act last week as its struck a deal with Google that will bring in $100 million to support the news sector and remove concerns about blocked news links. The government had to overhaul its own law in order to reach the agreement, tossing aside most of the core elements in favour of a fund-style single payment from Google. The reaction to the agreement from the news sector has been mixed at best with relative silence from many supporters and outright opposition from the likes of Torstar. So what to make the of the deal and what comes next? Jeff Elgie is the CEO of Village Media, one of the largest independent, digital-only news outlets in Canada. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to walk though his participation in the process, reaction to the agreement, and thoughts for the future.

For many years, Canadians have lamented the state of competition for Internet broadband services, pointing to concerns regarding price and lack of choice. Earlier this month, the CRTC seemed to agree, admitting in a decision involving competitive access that it is “important that the Commission revise its approach to promote competition and protect the interests of Canadians.” Andy Kaplan-Myrth is Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs at TekSavvy, one of the few remaining independent competitors in Canada. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the current state of competition, the recent CRTC decision, and what this might mean for the Canadian market.

The much-anticipated Bill C-11 hearing opens this week at the CRTC. For the next three weeks, the Commission will hear from a wide range of stakeholders, including digital and legacy creators, Internet giants, telecom companies, and consumer groups. This hearing, which builds on an earlier consultation on registration requirements, will address issues that include mandated Internet streaming company contributions and discoverability requirements. What brought us to this moment and what lies ahead? This week’s Law Bytes podcast reviews the lengthy legislative process, the key players at the hearings, and how this consultation fits within the broader Bill C-11 framework.

Is the Canadian government’s Internet legislation constitutional? That question arose during the hearings on Bills C-11 and C-18, but has taken on a new urgency given the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision involving an Alberta challenge to federal environmental assessment legislation. With limits on federal powers back in the spotlight, the vulnerability of the legislation requires further examination. Philip Palmer is a former Justice lawyer who appeared before the House of Commons committee studying Bill C-11 to make the case that the law does not fall within the scope of federal powers. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain why and what it might mean for the Internet streaming and news laws.

Generative AI raises a host of interesting legal issues, but perhaps none will be more contentious than the intersection between copyright and services such as ChatGPT. The copyright questions apply both the creation of large language models used to train these systems as well as the copyright associated with outputs. These questions have sparked high profile class action lawsuits and government consultations on potential reform. Andres Guadamuz is a Reader in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sussex and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of World Intellectual Property. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain the copyright implications of generative AI and to unpack the claims found in the copyright class action lawsuits.

After months of delays, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology has finally begun to conduct hearings on Bill C-27, which wraps Canadian privacy reform and AI regulation into a single legislative package. Last week, I appeared before the committee, making the case that the process is need of fixing and the bill in need of reform. The appearance sparked a wide range of questions from MPs from all parties. This week’s Law Bytes podcast takes you inside the committee hearing room for my opening statement and exchanges with MPs.

Several weeks ago, the CRTC released the first set of what is likely to become at least a dozen decisions involving the Online Streaming Act, formerly known as Bill C-11. One of those decisions involved establishing which services would be required to register with the CRTC as part of new registration requirements in the law. That sparked an immediate public debate over the scope of the registration requirements and their potential applicability to podcasts. This week’s Law Bytes podcast tries to set the record straight: the registration rules - and even the forthcoming regulations - will not regulate what you can say on a podcast nor do they establish a government podcast registry. However, the registration rules and the forthcoming regulations will have a direct or indirect impact on podcasts.

Since the Canadian copyright law reforms in 2012, education and libraries have increased spending on licensing and a non-partisan House of Commons study found no need to create new restriction on education and library copying rights. Yet given the misinformation flooding the copyright debate, the Canadian Federation of Library Associations recently spoke out in an effort to set the record straight. Victoria Owen, a leading expert on copyright and libraries, is the chair of the CFLA copyright committee. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the CFLA statement, the state of copyright law in Canada, and the significant content licensing by educational and library institutions.

Last week, the CRTC issued the first two of what are likely to be at least a dozen decisions involving the Online Streaming Act. Those decisions are already sparking controversy, but as the Commission focuses on Bill C-11 and perhaps soon Bill C-18, there is mounting concern that its other responsibilities are falling by the wayside that its independence from the government is starting to show cracks. Peter Menzies is a former Vice-Chair of the CRTC and frequently commentator on broadcast, telecom and Internet regulatory issues. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the current state of the Commission, which has never seemed more important but also seemed more out of touch and incapable of meeting its duties.

It’s been a dizzying stretch since the launch of Chat GPT, with artificial intelligence regulation and policy bursting forward as top concern in Canada and around the world. From a Canadian perspective, Bill C-27 got most of its initial attention for its privacy provisions, but its inclusion of an AI bill – AIDA – has emerged as a huge issue in its own right. Meanwhile, the government has also quietly been pushing ahead with new generative AI guidelines that may debut this week.Bianca Wylie is a writer and an open government and public technology advocate with a dual background in technology and public engagement. She’s become increasingly uncomfortable with the AI regulatory process in Canada and she joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide her thoughts about AIDA, generative AI regulation, and a process she believes is in dire need of fixing.

The Law Bytes podcast is back after a brief break, and with it, talk about the Online News Act or Bill C-18. All news – both Canadian and foreign – is blocked on Facebook and Instagram in response to Bill C-18 and the reports suggest that the move has had no real impact in use of the platform. Where it has had an impact, however, is on news outlets themselves, many of whom have experienced significant reductions in referral traffic, which invariably leads to less revenues.Much of the attention is on the big players, but the problem is particularly acute for smaller, independent news outlets. Chris Dinn is the founder and publisher of Torontoverse, a new Toronto news outlet that combines news with mapping technologies to create a different way of engaging with the news. The year-old site was growing quickly, but recently announced that it was slowing down in response to Bill C-18’s impact. Chris joins the podcast to talk about the business, the effect of the government legislation, and what he thinks should come next.

Coming off a week in which the government engineered a major cabinet overhaul that saw Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez replaced by Pascale St-Onge, an escalation of the battle over digital stales taxes, and which featured significant news on both the Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 fronts, this week’s Law Bytes podcast provides a mid-summer update on recent developments. Barring some urgent news, the podcast will be taking a break in August and return in September.

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm in recent months with the potential of generative AI – both positive and negative – top of mind in just about every sector. That is certainly true for the legal profession, where AI tools are becoming increasingly common and courts and regulators try to grapple with the implications. Amy Salyzyn is a colleague at the University of Ottawa who has written extensively in the area of legal ethics, lawyer regulation, the use of technology in the delivery of legal services and access to justice. In the coming academic year she’ll be teaching a course on AI and the legal profession and she joins me on the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the latest on AI technology for law and the legal, regulatory and ethical challenges it brings.

The Online News Act has continued to create a political firestorm this summer with a legislative battle that leaves the future of some Canadian news organizations stuck in the middle between sabre rattling from the government and Internet platforms. Chris Waddell is a professor at and former director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University in Ottawa and also holds the university’s Carty Chair in Business and Financial Journalism. He’s worked at the CBC and the Globe and Mail, where he won two National Newspaper Awards. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide much needed context on the current moment in Canadian media and to offer some thoughts on what may lie ahead.

Canada’s Access to Information system is now widely viewed as a failure, marked by extensive delays and processes that can be difficult to navigate. While the reforms continue to lag within government, the Globe and Mail has undertaken a remarkable project that does the work governments should be doing. Secret Canada is part giant ATIP database, part investigative series in the Globe in Mail on freedom to information. Led by Tom Cardoso and Robin Doolittle, the project is an exceptional resource that opens the door to better government transparency and greater accessibility of the ATIP system. Cardoso joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the challenges with Canada’s access to information system and the Secret Canada project.

Bill C-18 passed the House and Senate and received royal assent last week, leading Meta to confirm that it will be blocking news sharing on its Facebook and Instagram platforms given the economic costs and uncertainty with the law. Meanwhile Google is reportedly in discussions with the government about whether regulations might be crafted in a way to avoid a similar outcome. I’ve covered Bill C-18 extensively on the Law Bytes podcast, but the history behind the legislation and associated lobbying provides valuable context for the current situation. Marc Edge has written several books on the newspaper industry. His most recent work, The Postmedia Effect, helps makes sense of Bill C-18 as a continuum of lobbying for government support that has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars. He joins me on the podcast to discuss.

With Parliament set to break this week for the summer, this week’s Law Bytes podcast provides a half-year report on what happened over the past six months. At the start of the year, I focused on five issues in 2023 preview: the role of Canadian Heritage, the increasing tensions over digital policy, the emergence of private members bills, wireless policy disputes, as well as privacy and AI regulation. The episode revisits these issues with an examination of how Bills C-11 and C-18 were pushed through the legislative process, the battles over wireless regulation in light of the Rogers-Shaw merger, and the failure to advance privacy and AI regulation.

Bill C-18, the Online News Act, heads to clause-by-clause review this week at the Senate Transport and Communications Committee. The committee’s study of the bill wasn’t as extensive as Bill C-11, but it did hear from a very wide range of stakeholders and experts. Last month, I devoted the Law Bytes podcast to my appearance before the committee, including my opening statement and exchanges with various senators. This week’s Law Bytes podcast takes listeners into the committee room for clips from media big and small, independent experts, Google and Meta, and Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez.

The right to repair would seem like a political no-brainer: a policy designed to extend the life of devices and equipment and the ability to innovate for the benefit of consumers and the environment. Yet somehow copyright law has emerged as a barrier on that right, limiting access to repair guides and restricting the ability for everyone from farmers to video gamers to tinker with their systems. The government has pledged to address the issue and Bill C-244, a private members bill making its way through the House of Commons, would appear to be the way it plans to live up to that promise. Alissa Centivany, an assistant professor in the faculty of information and media studies at Western University and Anthony Rosborough, who completing his doctoral thesis at the European University Institute in Florence and is set to take up a joint appointment in Law and Computer Science at Dalhousie University later this year, have been two of the most outspoken experts on this issue in Canada. They join the Law Bytes podcast to talk about why the time has come for government action, their experience before a House of Commons committee on the bill, and unpack some of the confusion arising from late breaking amendments.

It has taken many months, but Bill C-27, the government’s long overdue effort at privacy reform finally is headed to committee for review. Philippe Dufresne, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, has been patiently waiting for this moment, armed with a comprehensive review of the bill and a wide range of recommendations for amendments that include a more explicit framing of privacy as a fundamental right. Dufresne was appointed as Canada’s privacy commissioner nearly one year ago and in months since has made numerous committee appearances, issued high profile findings involving companies such as Home Depot, battled Internet companies in the courts, and worked on the privacy implications of AI. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to reflect back on his first year in the position and to outline his proposals to strengthen Canada’s best shot at a modernized privacy law.

Bill C-18, the Online News Act, has now shifted to the Senate, where the Transportation and Communications committee, is reviewing a bill that has led Meta to say it plans to block news sharing in Canada altogether in the bill passes in its current form. I appeared before the committee earlier this month with discussion that focused on a wide range of issues, including the risks of mandating payments for links, the non-compliance with international copyright obligations, why the CBC should not be included in the payment for links system, and how a fund would be a better approach. This week’s Lawbytes podcast goes inside the committee room for my opening statement and exchanges with half a dozen Senators.

For the second consecutive year, the government is using the Budget Implementation Act to quietly pass concerning legislation with minimal oversight or public attention. Last year, the BIA was used to extend the term of copyright in order to comply with the USMCA. This year, it is privacy that is at issue, with provisions related to political parties. Why would the government squeeze in privacy rules on political parties in Bill C-47? Colin Bennett, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria and a leading privacy expert, has the answer. He’s been focused on Canada’s inadequate privacy rules governing political parties for a decade and is now sounding the alarm on the bill, noting that the provisions appear to be an effort to sideline a case in British Columbia that would apply tougher provincial privacy rules to Canada’s national political parties. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain.

The recent dust-up between Twitter and the CBC over a “government funded media” label sparked fiery rhetoric from both sides. Opponents of the CBC invoked the notion of propaganda from the public broadcaster, while supporters responded that such comments amounted to an attack on a Canadian institution. That heated debate obscures the reality that there is a discussion worth having about the CBC’s independence, its transparency, and public reporting. Monica Auer, the executive director of Canada's Forum on Research and Policy in Communications, recently wrote about that issue and she joins the Law Bytes podcast to assess whether the CBC is as independent as it says it is.

The controversy over Facebook and Cambridge Analytica was back in the spotlight in Canada as the Federal Court sided with Facebook and against the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in a decision arising from a 2019 investigation into the matter. The Privacy Commissioner ruled against Facebook in 2019, but Facebook disagreed with the findings, took the matter to court, and won. What lies behind the decision and what does it mean for privacy in Canada? My colleague Teresa Scassa, who holds the Canada Research Chair In Information Law, is widely regarded as one of Canada’s leading privacy law experts. She posted on the decision soon after its release and joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the ruling and its broader implications.

ChatGPT burst onto the public scene late last year, giving artificial intelligence its “aha moment” for many people. AI is now seemingly everywhere, attracting enormous attention and excitement alongside concerns, legal threats and talk of regulation. The potential of AI is evident to just about everyone, but the challenges associated with bias, copyright, privacy, misinformation and more can’t be ignored. Cohere AI is a Canadian-based AI firm that is widely viewed as one of Canada’s AI stars for its large language models that enable companies of all sizes to integrate AI technologies. Aidan Gomez, who worked on the “T” in ChatGPT, is the co-founder and CEO of Cohere AI. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about AI and his views on the myriad of emerging legal and regulatory issues.

Last week, Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne tried to spin his approval of the Rogers-Shaw merger and the enhanced role of Videotron as a win for Canadians, arguing that somehow fewer competitors would lead to greater competition. But in recent months, the Canadian communications landscape has shifted, not only with this merger but also with the gradual disappearance of a half-dozen independent providers who have been swallowed up by the large companies. What does his mean for the wireless and Internet competition in Canada? Is there any hope for consumers for a respite from some of the world’s highest prices? Paul Andersen is the Chair of CNOC - the Competitive Network Operators of Canada - and the President of E-Gate Networks, an independent provider. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the implications of the merger, the loss of many independent providers and recent leadership changes at the CRTC.

Bill C-18, the online news bill whose foundation is mandated payments for links, has unsurprisingly sparked reaction from Google and Facebook that raises the possibility of stopping linking to Canadian news. In an act of obvious retribution, the government responded to the companies response with a motion that demanded a wide range of internal and external documents dating back years and even looped in the private correspondence of companies, NGOs, journalists and potentially of thousands of Canadians. Perrin Beatty is a former Cabinet Minister under Prime Ministers Clark and Mulroney, was named President of the CBC by Jean Chretien, and is now the President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. His members are split in their views of Bill C-18, but not on the motion at Heritage committee. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the concerns with the motion and the dangerous precedent it sets.

In recent years, there has been growing effort to link longstanding concerns about Canadian innovation with patents. The argument – which has crossed into Canada’s strategy around AI – posits that the road to an innovative economy is inextricably linked to a greater emphasis on intellectual property and in particular on patents. But what if the correlation between patents and innovation is weak at best? What if an emphasis on patents may actually be harmful to startups whose attention and resources is better placed elsewhere? Peter Carrescia is a successful innovator and investor who recently wrote a Globe and Mail op-ed that raises precisely these issues. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about his experience and concerns with direction of government policy that may be mistaking an IP policy for an innovation one.

TikTok may be enormously popular, but according to the growing number of government, there are concerns regarding links between the app and the Chinese government. That has led to a rapid spread bans of the TikTok app on government devices not only at the federal level, but at provincial and municipal governments and even at universities for university-owned devices. But is TikTok unique in this regard? How to reconcile the government’s insistence that TikTok contribute to Cancon in Bill C-11 with it banning the app due to security risks? Are the privacy concerns more about TikTok or the government’s inaction on privacy reform? Fenwick McKelvey is an Associate Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy at Concordia University and the co-director of the Applied AI Institute. He returns to the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the TikTok bans, the state of Canadian policy in addressing the concerns, and why we may be heading for more geo-political battles over digital policy.

Bill C-18, the Online News Act, has been at the centre of growing firestorm in Canada following reports that Google has begun testing the removal of links to Canadian news services for a small percentage of its users. The issue is headed to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage later today with MPs likely to take turns berating Google executives. If you’re just catching up or don’t understand what the fuss is about, this Law Bytes podcast is for you. While the government tries to spin the bill as a big win for media of all sizes without concerns for the Internet, the reality is far different. But you don’t have to take my word for it. This episode features clips of what Ministers, MPs, Senators, and government officials have already said at committee or in the Senate about the bill.

Last week was Fair Dealing Week, a chance for a wide range of Canadians - educators, students, librarians, archivists, and creators - to celebrate the important role that fair dealing plays in facilitating both fair access and fair compensation to copyrighted works. I ran a series of posts on Canadian education, fair dealing and copyright that will continue into the coming week. This podcast episode is part of that series featuring Stephen Spong, the director of the John and Dotsa Bitove law library and copyright officer at Western University. Spong used fair dealing week to write a piece that appeared in multiple press venues to lament what he termed “goblin mode gaslighting on copyright” and he joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about fair dealing in practice and the ongoing policy debate.

Bill C-11 is in the hands of the government as Canadians await a decision on which Senate amendments it will accept, which might be rejected, and then how the Senate responds. A key question involves a fix to the regulation of user content provision, which provides that sound recordings are in, but user content is out. Senator Paula Simons, an independent Senator from Alberta nominated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the Senate in 2018, co-crafted the compromise amendment and has been one of the most engaged and informed Senators throughout the Bill C-11 legislative process. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the hearings, her amendment, and what may lie ahead for both Bill C-11 and the upcoming Senate review of Bill C-18.

Many Canadians started the new year with an unwelcome surprise as they learned that Canada had extended the term of copyright by additional 20 years with no mitigation measures or efforts to limit the harmful effects of the policy. That the extension did not get much attention was seemingly by design as the government buried it in a budget implementation bill and posted no news releases on it. Mark Swartz is a Scholarly Publishing Librarian at Queen’s University and has been an active participant in copyright reform issues for many years. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about Canada’s approach to copyright term extension, the impact on the public domain, and what could come next.

The House of Commons and Senate return from a lengthy break this week and will likely run until late June with the occasional week or two off. Digital policy may not attract top line attention, but it has emerged as one of the government’s most active issues. This week’s Law Bytes podcast provides a preview of the upcoming session, looking at what may lie ahead for issues such as telecom policy, privacy reform, Bills C-11 and C-18, copyright, and trade policy.

The battle over the Rogers – Shaw merger has continued to escalate in recent days with TekSavvy filing a complaint with the CRTC on the wholesale access implications of the deal, a campaign to urge ISED Minister François-Philippe Champagne to reject the transaction, and a forthcoming Industry committee hearing on the situation. The merger heads for what may be its final legal showdown this week as the Federal Court of Appeal conducts its hearing on the Competition Bureau’s appeal of a recent decision from the Competition Tribunal that rejected its opposition to the proposed merger. Jennifer Quaid is an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean Research in the Civil Law Section at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She joins me on the podcast to unpack the legal arguments in the case, provides her prognostication on a potential outcome at the Court of Appeal, and offers insights into potential future competition law reforms in Canada in light of a national consultation on the issue.

The start of a new year often means a fresh start and for the CRTC, it meant welcoming a new chair, as Vicky Eatrides officially took over as chair a few days into 2023. Eatrides comes to the Commission at a particularly busy time with wireless competition concerns top of mind for many Canadians and the government set to ask the Commission to play a pivotal role in implementing Bills C-11 and C-18. Konrad von Finckenstein is someone who knows quite a bit about the challenges faced by new CRTC chairs, having served in the role from 2007 to 2012. He was recently appointed to the Order of Canada for his many contributions to public life and he joins me on the podcast to reflect on those experiences in the context of the CRTC. Our conversation reflects on what is involved in launching entirely new programs, ensuring public engagement, and developing policies that enjoy both public support and can withstand potential legal challenges.

Canadian digital law and policy in 2022 was marked by legislative battles over Bills C-11 and C-18, the Rogers outage, stalled privacy and AI reform, copyright term extension, and a growing trade battle with the U.S. over Canadian policies. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2022, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead in 2023. 

The government’s two big Internet bills - Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, both made significant advances late last week. The Senate Transport and Communications committee concluded months of hearings on Bill C-11 by agreeing to about 25 amendments, notably including a change to the scope of user content regulation that is designed to limit the application to sound recordings as well as the removal of a provision that critics feared would limit CRTC independence. Meanwhile in the House, Bill C-18 cleared the Canadian Heritage committee with changes that invite legal challenges and make a showdown over blocking news content increasingly likely. Just prior to these closing committee meetings, I appeared on TVO’s the Agenda with Steve Paikin to discuss the bills and why they matter. The interview elicited very positive feedback and with the kind permission of TVO and the Agenda, I’m pleased to provide the audio version of that interview as this week’s Law Bytes podcast.

The stunning collapse of FTX, one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, has not only shaken the crypto world but called into question the future of blockchain and digital assets. In a year of repeated failures and crashes, the calls for increased regulation are getting louder. Ryan Clements is a law professor at the University of Calgary, where he holds the chair in Business Law and Regulation and specializes in the regulation of fintech, blockchain and crypto-assets. He’s written extensively on crypto regulatory issues, including an expert report on Canadian cryptocurrency governance for the Public Order Emergency Commission. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide some background into the growth of crypto, the collapses of Luna and FTX, and where Canada sits on the regulatory spectrum.

Bill C-27, the government’s privacy and artificial intelligence bill is slowly making its way through the Parliamentary process. One of the emerging issues has been the mounting opposition to the AI portion of the bill, including a recent NDP motion to divide the bill for voting purposes, separating the privacy and AI portions. In fact, several studies have been released which place the spotlight on the concerns with the government’s plan for AI regulation, which is widely viewed as vague and ineffective. Christelle Tessono is a tech policy researcher based at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP). She was one of several authors of a joint report on the AI bill which brought together researchers from the Cybersecure Policy Exchange at Toronto Metropolitan University, McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, and the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. Christelle joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the report and what she thinks needs to change in Bill C-27.

Bill C-27, the government’s privacy and artificial intelligence bill is slowly making its way through the Parliamentary process. One of the emerging issues has been the mounting opposition to the AI portion of the bill, including a recent NDP motion to divide the bill for voting purposes, separating the privacy and AI portions. In fact, several studies have been released which place the spotlight on the concerns with the government’s plan for AI regulation, which is widely viewed as vague and ineffective. Christelle Tessono is a tech policy researcher based at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP). She was one of several authors of a joint report on the AI bill which brought together researchers from the Cybersecure Policy Exchange at Toronto Metropolitan University, McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, and the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. Christelle joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the report and what she thinks needs to change in Bill C-27.

Bill C-27, the government’s privacy and artificial intelligence bill is slowly making its way through the Parliamentary process. One of the emerging issues has been the mounting opposition to the AI portion of the bill, including a recent NDP motion to divide the bill for voting purposes, separating the privacy and AI portions. In fact, several studies have been released which place the spotlight on the concerns with the government’s plan for AI regulation, which is widely viewed as vague and ineffective. Christelle Tessono is a tech policy researcher based at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP). She was one of several authors of a joint report on the AI bill which brought together researchers from the Cybersecure Policy Exchange at Toronto Metropolitan University, McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, and the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. Christelle joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the report and what she thinks needs to change in Bill C-27.

The end for Bill C-11 at the Senate is drawing near as this week, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is scheduled to make a long awaited appearance followed by clause-by-clause review of the bill. While the Senate was continuing its hearings last week, I was delighted to travel to Yale University to deliver a talk on the bill and the controversies it has sparked. This week’s Law Bytes podcast is an audio version of that talk, which traces the development of Canadian broadcast policy as applied to the Internet and recounts how a relatively uncontroversial bill when first introduced sparked a firestorm that is still raging.

The end for Bill C-11 at the Senate is drawing near as this week, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is scheduled to make a long awaited appearance followed by clause-by-clause review of the bill. While the Senate was continuing its hearings last week, I was delighted to travel to Yale University to deliver a talk on the bill and the controversies it has sparked. This week’s Law Bytes podcast is an audio version of that talk, which traces the development of Canadian broadcast policy as applied to the Internet and recounts how a relatively uncontroversial bill when first introduced sparked a firestorm that is still raging.

As Bill C-18 heads to clause-by-clause review later this week, the prospect that Facebook could block news sharing on its platform in Canada in response has attracted the ire of politicians and concerns from media outlets that rely on social media as part of their business model. But is this a bluff or, having just laid off 11,000 employees, an accurate reflection of where the company stands on the value of news on its platform given current economic realities? Axel Bruns is a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who has written about the Australian News Media Bargaining Code and the effects of the Facebook news sharing blocking in 2021. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the Australian experience in an effort to answer the question of whether Facebook is bluffing or if news sharing on the platform in Canada is placed at risk should Bill C-18 become law.

The hearings on the Online News Act – Bill C-18 - wrapped up last week with a final session in which I had the unexpected opportunity to appear and again raise concerns with the bill. My focus this time was on how the bill mandates payments for links and why that approach is a threat to freedom of expression in Canada. This week’s Law Bytes podcast takes you inside the hearing room as it features my opening statement and clips from exchanges with MPs from several parties that touched on everything from innovation to copyright reform to the rules for final offer arbitration.

The proposed Rogers-Shaw merger was back in the news last week as Canadian Industry minister Francois Philippe Champagne held a mid-week press conference to announce that the original deal was dead, but that a reworked deal that brings in Videotron might be a possibility if certain government expectations on restrictions on transferring spectrum licences and consumer pricing outside of Quebec were met. Keldon Bester is a co-founder of the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP), a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and an independent consultant and researcher working on issues of competition and monopoly power in Canada. He’s been one of the most insightful and outspoken experts on the proposed Rogers-Shaw merger and he joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss where things stand and the big picture weaknesses of Canadian competition law and policy.

Canadians using the Access to Information Act system frequently find that it is simply does not work as the legislation prescribes, with most facing long delays and widespread redactions. Canada’s Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard is trying to do something to fix that. She has been calling for legislative reforms, more resources, and leadership within government departments to prioritize providing information instead of hiding it. Commissioner Maynard joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the current system, how exceptions are often used too aggressively to limit public access, and what can be done to fix these problems.

Earlier this year, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino introduced Bill C-26, new cyber-security legislation. The bill may address an issue that is widely regarded as essential, but once Canadian privacy and civil liberties had the opportunity to review the fine print in the bill, many came away concerned. Indeed, by September a coalition of groups and experts wrote to the Minister and party leaders, stating “Bill C-26 is deeply problematic and needs fixing”, warning that it risks undermining privacy rights. Brenda McPhail, the Director of the Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, led the effort to place Bill C-26 in the spotlight. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the bill and the myriad of concerns that it raises.

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage launched its hearings on the Online News Act (Bill C-18) with a pair of hearings late last month. At this stage, it remains unclear whether the committee will undertake the extensive study the bill deserves. I appeared in the very first hearing, using my opening statement to touch on four key concerns: the definition of “use”, government intervention, the risk of increased misinformation, and the breaches of Canada’s trade and treaty obligations. This week’s Law Bytes podcast features an introduction to the bill and audio clips from the appearance.

The Law Bytes podcast returns with a special episode focused on combatting online anti-semitism with a particular emphasis on an incident involving the department of Canadian Heritage and Laith Marouf, a well known anti-semite. As part of Heritage’s anti-hate program, the government had provided funding to the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), led by Marouf, to develop an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasting. While there was years of evidence of Marouf’s anti-semitism, the department didn’t look or didn’t find it. The contract was cancelled after a public outcry, but even that led to concerns as it was left to Jewish MPs such as Anthony Housefather, Ya’ara Saks, and Melissa Lantsman to say something while many others remained silent. Housefather not only spoke out on the Marouf situation but also called on all MPs to become more vocal. Housefather has been working on online anti-semitism issues with politicians from around the world as part of an Inter-Parliamentary Task Force on Online Antisemitism and he joins me on the podcast to talk about the work of the task force and its recent hearing in Washington, DC, the Marouf incident, and the urgency for all to speak out more aggressively against anti-semitism.

Bill C-27, Canada’s privacy reform bill introduced in June by Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, was about more than just privacy. The bill also contains the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), the government’s attempt to begin to scope a regulatory environment around the use of AI technologies. Critics argue that regulations are long overdue, but have expressed concern about how much of the substance is left for regulations that are still to be developed. Florian Martin-Bariteau is a friend and colleague at the University of Ottawa, where he holds the University Research Chair in Technology and Society and serves as director of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. He is currently a fellow at the Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and he joins the Law Bytes podcast to breakdown the AIDA.

Rogers has provided some answers to the many questions about its massive outage last month that affected millions of Canadians. Yet there is still considerable uncertainty about what the government and CRTC are prepared to do to address ongoing concerns in the telecom sector. John Lawford is the Executive Director and General Counsel of PIAC, the Public Industry Advocacy Centre, which has been a leading consumer voice for decades in Canada. PIAC was the first to file a request with the CRTC seeking an inquiry into the outage. John and I were both participants at the Industry committee hearing into the outage and he joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss what we learned and what more can be done from a regulatory, legal, and policy perspective.

The Rogers outage came to Parliament Hill yesterday as the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology conducted four hours of hearings into the issue. The day started with Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, followed by Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri, CRTC Chair Ian Scott, and a panel of consumer and public interest voices. I was pleased to be part of the final panel and I've created a special Law Bytes podcast featuring my opening remarks and the question and answer session with MPs.

The Supreme Court of Canada's latest copyright decision - SOCAN v. Entertainment Software Association - affirms yet again that technological neutrality is a foundational element of the law and notably emphasizes that “copyright law does not exist solely for the benefit of authors.” My colleague Jeremy de Beer was an active participant in the case, writing an expert opinion during the Copyright Board phase of the case which reflects the approach that the court ultimately adopted. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the evolution of music distribution online, this latest case and the court’s commitment to copyright balance, as well as what might come next in the seemingly never-ending battle over Canadian copyright law.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez created an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety earlier this year to help craft a potential legislative and policy response to online safety and harms issues. The panel recently concluded its work and though the media focused on a failure to achieve absolute consensus from a group that by design had different views, the reality is that common ground was found on several key issues. Emily Laidlaw, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law at the University of Calgary, served as co-chair of the expert group. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about how the panel functioned, where it found consensus, areas of disagreement, and what could come next for one of the thorniest Internet policy issues.

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been mounting outrage over a CRTC decision involving Radio-Canada and a broadcast segment from 2020 in which the N-word was used multiple times as part of a discussion of a book that contains the word in its title. That decision has sparked cries of censorship and concerns about the CRTC. Given that Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and the government want to give the CRTC even power over Internet content as part of Bill C-11, the implications extend beyond this case. Monica Auer, the executive director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the latest developments, the broader concerns with CRTC governance, and whether assurances regarding Internet speech safeguards stand up to careful scrutiny.

It isn’t every day that a Senate committee examines legislation and makes notable changes against the wishes of the government. But that’s what happened last month as a Senate committee reviewed Bill S-7, which raised significant privacy concerns regarding the legal standard for searches of digital devices at the border. University of Calgary law professor Michael Nesbitt, who teaches and researches in the areas of criminal and national security law, appeared before the committee to argue against the government’s proposed approach. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the bill, the change at the Senate, and what lies ahead as the bill moves to the House of Commons in the fall.

Parliament is now on break for the summer, but just prior to heading out of Ottawa, the government introduced Bill C-27. The privacy reform bill that is really three bills in one: a reform of PIPEDA, a bill to create a new privacy tribunal, and an artificial intelligence regulation bill. What’s in the bill from a privacy perspective and what’s changed? Is this bill any likelier to become law than an earlier bill that failed to even advance to committee hearings? To help sort through the privacy aspects of Bill C-27, Ryan Black, a Vancouver-based partner with the law firm DLA Piper (Canada), joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss everything from changes to consent requirements to how the law will be enforced.

Last week, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage rushed through the clause-by-clause review of Bill C-11 in a manner that should not be forgotten or normalized. Despite the absence of any actual deadline, the government insisted that just three two hour sessions be allocated to full clause-by-clause review of the bill. Once the government-imposed deadline arrived at 9:00 pm, the committee moved to voting on the remaining proposed amendments without any debate, discussion, questions for department officials, or public disclosure of what was being voted on. This week’s Law Bytes podcast features clips from a hearing that one Member of Parliament described as “an affront to democracy”.

The debate over Bill C-11 – the Online Streaming Act – seems likely to come to an end this week, at least in the House of Commons. Last week, the government introduced a motion to put an end to committee debate and set tight timelines for any further review or discussion. Before it becomes forgotten, this week’s Law Bytes podcast is devoted to the House committee hearings on the bill with clips from a wide range of digital creators, interest groups, and independent experts on the potential Bill C-11 harms to user content.

In the two months since the Online News Act was introduced it has received limited coverage and sparked little debate. Last week, Bill C-18 began to attract attention as over 125 small and medium sized Canadian publishers began to sound the alarm, calling on the government to fix the bill by addressing concerns around fairness and transparency. Jeff Elgie of Village Media are two of Canada’s most successful and innovative local digital publishers, operating in dozens of communities across Canada. Both signed onto the initiative and join the Law Bytes podcast to discuss their business models, relationships with the Internet platforms, and concerns with the Online News Act.

Last week, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage started its hearings on the Online Streaming Act with the first of four day-long sessions it has planned for witnesses. Morghan Fortier, the co-founder and CEO of Skyship Entertainment, stole the show that day with insights that demand to be heard. Her company may not be a household name, but it’s Canada’s leading Youtube streaming service with millions of subscribers worldwide and billions of views. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about her company, the challenges and opportunities for Canadians in online streaming, and her sector’s concerns with the government’s Bill C-11 legislative plans.

Last week, the government took another step toward copyright term extension in Canada, inserting extension provisions within Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s Budget Implementation Act bill. Despite recommendations from its own copyright review, students, teachers, librarians, and copyright experts to include a registration requirement for the additional 20 years of protection, the government chose to extend term without including protection to mitigate against the harms.

Lucie Guibault is an internationally renowned expert on international copyright law, a Professor of Law and Associate Dean at Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, and the Associate Director of the school’s Law and Technology Institute. Days before the release of the bill, she joined the Law Bytes podcast for a discussion on copyright term extension, its implications and the government’s implementation options.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bill C-19, Budget Implementation Act

Canadian IP Scholars Copyright Term Extension consultation submission

Canadian IP Scholars Public Letter on Budget 2022 – Copyright Law Amendments

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, February 24, 2020

This week’s Law Bytes podcast departs from the typical approach as this past week was anything but typical. As readers of this blog will know, last week I obtained access to hundreds of previously secret submissions to the government’s online harms consultation. Those submissions cast the process in a new light. This week’s Law Bytes podcast explains why the online harms consultation was a transparency and policy failure, walking through what has happened, what we know now, and how this fits within the broader Internet regulation agenda of the Canadian government.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Online Harms Consultation ATIP Results

Credits:

Canada 2020, Democracy in the Digital Age: Addressing Online Harms

Last week, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez introduced Bill C-18 – the Online News Act – the second of three planned Internet regulation bills. There is much to unpack about the provisions in the bill including the enormous power granted to the CRTC, the extensive scope of the bill that could cover tweets or LinkedIn posts, the provision that encourages the Internet platforms to dictate how Canadian media organizations spend the money at issue, and the principle that news organizations should be compensated by some entities not only for the use of their work but even for links that refer traffic back to them.

Sue Gardner is the Max Bell School of Public Policy McConnell Professor of Practice for 2021-2022. A journalist who went on to head CBC.ca and later the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia), she is the only Canadian, and the first woman, to have run a global top-5 internet site. She joins the Law Bytes podcast for a conversation about journalism, the Internet platforms, and Bill C-18.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bill C-18, the Online News Act

Credits:

CBC News, This Bill Would Require Facebook, Google to Pay News Outlets

The CLOUD Act, which allows US law enforcement to use a warrant or subpoena to compel U.S.-based technology companies to provide data stored on servers regardless of where the data is located, was first introduced in the United States in 2018. Canada and the US recently announced plans to negotiate a Cloud Act agreement which would ease cross-border disclosures of data between the two countries.

David Fraser is a lawyer with McInnes Cooper in Halifax and one of Canada’s leading privacy experts. He regularly acts for clients on data disclosure matters and was one of the first to highlight the negotiations and its implications on his Youtube channel. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the Cloud Act, how it might fit into Canada’s privacy law framework, and how Canada should approach the negotiations.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Privacy Lawyer Blog, Canada – US Announce Beginning of CLOUD Act Negotiations

United States and Canada Welcome Negotiations of a CLOUD Act Agreement

Credits:

Senator Orrin Hatch, Hatch Previews CLOUD Act

Since the introduction of Bill C-11, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has insisted that he heard the concerns about regulating user generated content and he “fixed it.” Yet the reality is that anyone that takes the time to the read the bill knows that simply isn’t the case. The concerns with the government’s approach have started to attract the attention of Canadian digital-first creators, who fear the plans could lead to lost revenues and reduced promotion worldwide of what has become one of Canada’s most successful cultural exports.

Darcy Michael is a B.C.-based comedian with millions of TikTok subscribers and a globally successful podcast. Last week, he appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to warn about the risks of Bill C-11 and to call for reform. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to tell his story of success online and his fears about what the bill would mean for Canadian digital-first creators.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Darcy Michael website

Credits:

House of Commons, February 16, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked international condemnation and a race to levy sanctions and undo longstanding connections to the country. Responses have included demands that Russia Today, a television network backed by the Russian government, be removed from cable and satellite systems. Companies such as Bell, Rogers, Telus and Shaw have dropped the service, but the desire for a longer-term regulatory solution has brought the issue to the CRTC. Working with a strict two week deadline, last week the CRTC ruled that RT and RT France can no longer be distributed by Canadian television service providers. Monica Song is a partner with the law firm Dentons and one of Canada’s leading telecom and broadcast lawyers. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to unpack the case before the Commission and assess the broader implications around due process and content regulation.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

CRTC, RT and RT France can no longer be distributed by Canadian television service providers

Credits:

House of Commons, Question Period, March 2, 2022

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics spent much of February conducting a study on the collection and use of mobility data by the Government of Canada. The study stems from reports that the Public Health Agency of Canada worked with Telus and BlueDot, an AI firm, to identify COVID-19 trends based on mobility data with questions about whether there was appropriate disclosures, transparency and consent from the millions of Canadians whose data may have been collected. I appeared before the committee toward the end of the study, emphasizing that while the activities were arguably legal, something still does not sit right with many Canadians. This week’s Law Bytes podcast goes inside the hearing room for my appearance, where I made the case that Canada’s outdated privacy laws are no longer fit for purpose.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, Privacy Watchdog Investigates PHAC’s Use of Canadians’ Cellphone Location Data

The proposed Rogers – Shaw merger has placed Canada’s competition law and policy back into the spotlight as consumers frustrated by high wireless prices and a market that many believe already suffers from insufficient competition face the prospect of even less competition should the deal be approved. Last week, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology agreed, issuing a recommendation that “the Committee believes the merger should not proceed” and identifying the need for conditions in the event that it does.

Vass Bednar, Ana Qarri, and Robin Shaban recently conducted an extensive study for the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry on competition in data driven markets in Canada. Vass, the Executive Director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) in Digital Society Program, Ana, a recent graduate of McGill University Faculty of Law, and Robin, co-founder and senior economist at Vivic Research, join me on this week’s Law Bytes podcast to discuss their study, the intersection between competition and digital and telecom policy, and their proposed reforms to reshape Canadian competition law.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bednar, Qarri and Shaban, Study of Competition Issues in Data-Driven Markets in Canada

Credits:

Global News, What a $26 B deal between telecom giants means for 5G in Canada

The political and policy battles over lawful access have been going on for decades, cutting across multiple governments both Liberal and Conservative. The so-called zombie policy proposal resurfaced again last summer as then Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault included elements of lawful access within his online harms consultation. Dr. Christopher Parsons is a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School’s Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where his research focuses on third-party access to telecommunications data, data privacy, data security, and national security. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the history of the lawful access debate, the implications of warrantless access to subscriber data, and the recent revival of the issue.

The political and policy battles over lawful access have been going on for decades, cutting across multiple governments both Liberal and Conservative. The so-called zombie policy proposal resurfaced again last summer as then Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault included elements of lawful access within his online harms consultation. The government plans to revisit its plans for online harms, but the lawful access issue is sure to return.

Dr. Christopher Parsons is a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School’s Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where his research focuses on third-party access to telecommunications data, data privacy, data security, and national security. He previously appeared on the podcast to discuss the questions about the use of Huawei equipment in Canada’s telecom networks and returns to talk about the history of the lawful access debate, the implications of warrantless access to subscriber data, and the recent revival of the lawful access issue.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Parsons, Lawful Access Returns: Online Harms and Warrantless Access to Subscriber and Transmission Data

Credits:

CBC News, Online Surveillance Bill Backlash

The political and policy battles over lawful access have been going on for decades, cutting across multiple governments both Liberal and Conservative. The so-called zombie policy proposal resurfaced again last summer as then Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault included elements of lawful access within his online harms consultation. Dr. Christopher Parsons is a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School’s Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where his research focuses on third-party access to telecommunications data, data privacy, data security, and national security. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the history of the lawful access debate, the implications of warrantless access to subscriber data, and the recent revival of the issue.

The political and policy battles over lawful access have been going on for decades, cutting across multiple governments both Liberal and Conservative. The so-called zombie policy proposal resurfaced again last summer as then Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault included elements of lawful access within his online harms consultation. Dr. Christopher Parsons is a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School’s Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where his research focuses on third-party access to telecommunications data, data privacy, data security, and national security. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the history of the lawful access debate, the implications of warrantless access to subscriber data, and the recent revival of the issue.

After several weeks of protests, occupation, and border crossing blocking, the Canadian government took the unprecedented step last week of invoking the Emergencies Act. The situation is rapidly evolving and still being debated in the House of Commons. Dr. Leah West is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University and one of Canada’s leading experts on national security law. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss rules surrounding the Emergencies Act and the implications of the government’s recent move to invoke it.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Leah West, Public Order Emergency: A Guide to Thinking Through the Legal Thresholds and Its Justification

Jessica Davis, Insight Intelligence

CCLA Files Judicial Review

Credits:

Guardian News, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act over Protests

The interest in regulation and Web 3.0, the umbrella term for all matters crypto, continues to grow in countries around the world. In Canada, a new private member’s bill encourages the government to establish a regulatory framework to support innovation even as concerns mount over the use of cryptocurrency to by-pass conventional payments regulations. In the United States, there have been multiple Congressional hearings and proposals for legislative action.

Fight for the Future was one of many leading digital civil liberties groups that included Access now, Article 19, EFF, and Global Voices, that recently came together to issue a public letter in support of alternatives to big tech and to approach legislation related to Web 3 technologies carefully. Sarah Roth-Gaudette, the Executive Director of Fight for the Future, joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about Web 3, the regulatory initiatives, and the issues that are at stake.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

In Support of Alternatives to Big Tech

Credits:

Yahoo Finance, Key Takeaways From the Capitol Hill Hearing with Crypto CEOs

The government’s Internet regulation plans were back on the agenda last week as a “what we heard report” was released on online harms and Bill C-11 – the sequel to last year’s controversial Bill C-10 – was introduced by Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. The Law Bytes podcast will devote several episodes to the bill in the coming months. For this week, however, rather than inviting a guest to discuss a bill that people are still assessing, I appear solo and walk through the bill’s provisions involving user generated content. The podcast also highlights several ongoing concerns involving the near-unlimited jurisdictional scope of the bill, the considerable uncertainty for all stakeholders, the misplaced trust in the CRTC, and the weak evidentiary case for the bill.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bill C-11, The Online Streaming Act

Credits:

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez Discusses Government’s Online Streaming Bill, February 2, 2022

There has been mounting concern over the past few years over whether some of the world’s largest companies – primarily big tech – pay their fair share of taxes. This issue has arisen in countries around the world leading to new digital services taxes that primarily target the U.S. tech giants and which in turn often leads to the U.S. threatening to retaliate in response. Canada now finds itself embroiled in these battles as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has proposed a retroactive digital services tax to take effect in 2024 if by that time a newly reached OECD agreement has not taken effect. Professor Reuven Avi-Yonah is a law professor at the University of Michigan and director of the school’s international tax LLM program. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss digital services taxes, the OECD deal, and what might happen if the international agreement falls apart.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CNBC International, What is a Digital Tax?

The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, led by Professor Ron Deibert, has a well-earned reputation for uncovering surveillance technologies and security vulnerabilities with research and reports that attract immediate attention worldwide. Professor Deibert has won an incredible array of awards and accolades for his remarkable work, including the Order of Ontario and the EFF’s Pioneer Award. In 2020, he delivered the Massey Lectures, based on his book for the lectures, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. Professor Deibert joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the lab, his work, and the threat of what he calls “despotism as a service”, where spyware is used to target journalists, activists, and civil society groups.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Issues in Science and Technology, Protecting Society From Surveillance Spyware

Credits:

DW News, Hacking Backdoor? Security Flaws in China’s Mandatory Olympics App

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

The right to repair, whether consumer electronics, farm machinery or even health and medical equipment, is an issue that affects everyone. Given the implications for consumer and property rights, the sustainability of the agricultural sector, and protecting the environment, ensuring a right to repair would seem like an obvious political winner. Yet the issue has lagged, not the least of which because of restrictive copyright laws that can limit the ability to repair personal property.

Aaron Perzanowski is a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio and the Associate Director of the Spangenberg Center for Law, Technology & the Arts. Professor Perzanowski is the author of the forthcoming book, The Right to Repair, to be published by Cambridge University Press early next year. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain why the right to repair matters, how copyright fits into this, and what reforms are needed to address the issue.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Aaron Perzanowski, The Right to Repair: Reclaiming the Things We Own (Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming 2022)

Credits:

Tomorrow Unlocked, No Right to Repair: Farmers are Forced to Hack Their Own Tractors

Privacy breaches have become increasingly commonplace as businesses of all sizes grapple with how to keep customer information secure and what to do when things go wrong. The issue is particularly challenging for small and medium sized business, who are forced to navigate a regulatory framework that isn’t easy and can be extremely expensive. Enter JusTech, a project launched by Ritesh Kotak, Ayushi Dave, and Ryan Mosoff, three University of Ottawa law students who leveraged legal innovation hackathons to create a free online service that walks small businesses through the regulations and makes compliance manageable. I’ve been proud to serve as an advisor to JusTech, which provides some notable lessons on legal innovation and privacy law. Ritesh, Ayusha, and Ryan join the Law Bytes podcast to discuss.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, How to Keep Your Information Secure Amid Data Breaches

Canada’s strategy to ensure that everyone from coast to coast to coast has access to affordable high speed Internet services is widely viewed as a failure and the source of ongoing frustration for many, particularly those in rural, remote and indigenous communities. Those communities often face the prospect of no broadband access or at best expensive, unreliable services. The Council of Canadian Academies recently convened an expert panel on High-Throughput Networks for Rural and Remote Communities in Canada.

The panel’s report is a must read for anyone concerned with equitable and affordable Internet access and the consequences of leaving many communities – particularly indigenous communities – behind. The panel was chaired by Karen Barnes, the former president of Yukon University and included Professor Catherine Middleton, the Director of the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management at Ryerson University. They join the Law Bytes podcast this week to discuss the panel, the report, and the recommendations for policy action.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes

CCA Report, Waiting to Connect: The Expert Panel on High-Throughput Networks for Rural and Remote Communities in Canada

Credits:

CBC News, Digital Divide May Impact the Future of Indigenous Youth

The Canadian Parliament is set to resume this week and it’s a safe bet that Internet regulation will be part of the legislative agenda in the coming months. One of the toughest policy issues involve misinformation, which can be difficult to define and potentially to regulate. The Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression was established in spring 2020 with a three-year mandate to better understand, anticipate, and respond to the effects of new digital technologies on public life and Canadian democracy. As part of its work, it created a Citizens’ Assembly comprised of Canadians from across the country who recently gathered for several days to debate disinformation online. Last week, I was honoured to deliver a dinner speech to the group followed by a facilitated discussion. This week’s podcast features a recording of that lecture with the slides posted here.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes

PPT presentation to the Citizens’ Assembly

Credits:

CityNews Edmonton, Nearly All Canadians Saw COVID-19 Misinformation Online, Study Says

Scott Simms, a Liberal MP from Newfoundland for 17 years, was long recognized as a leading voice on Parliament Hill on cultural and digital policy. Simms recently served as the chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which conducted the review of Bill C-10 and which placed him at the heart of one of the year’s more controversial pieces of proposed legislation. Simms was not re-elected this past fall and is now well positioned to reflect on policy making in Canada and the issues that arose with Bill C-10. He joins the Law Bytes podcast for a conversation about the bill, his suggestions for how the process can be improved, and his thoughts on the challenges of crafting forward-looking digital policies.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 11, 2021

From Bitcoin to NFTs, interest in crypto and the blockchain has never been greater. Millions of people around the world invest in various crypto currencies, exchanges seem to pop-up daily, and for better or worse the pace of innovation and new services is reminiscent of the early of the days of the Internet. As the industry races ahead, where does the law fit in? Can the law fit in?

Addison Cameron-Huff is a Toronto-based blockchain and cryptocurrency lawyer. A former president of Decentral, a leading Canadian blockchain company and the co-founder of Toronto Blockchain Week, his clients have included virtual currency dealers, DeFI platforms, and stablecoin developers. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide some insight into the state of Canadian law and regulation when it comes to this fast-moving, globally oriented sector.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, Toronto Stock Exchange Launches World’s First Bitcoin ETF

The Canadian digital first creator economy isn’t something that politicians or policy makers seem to know much about, but they are quick to propose legislative reforms that directly implicate it, most recently in the form of Bill C-10. Yet the sector is thriving, with Canadian stars earning millions of dollars and attracting global audiences that often exceed Canada’s conventional film and television sector.

Scott Benzie, the CEO of Buffer Festival, started in traditional media but now advocates and works with creators, platforms and industry around online content. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the current state of digital first creators in Canada, their omission from the Bill C-10 process, and the formation of Digital First Canada, a new advocacy group to better represent the needs of the community.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Pokimane Too, Watching PewDiePie’s Rewind

NDP MP Charlie Angus has been a consistent – and persistent – voice on digital policies since his election to the House of Commons in 2004. He was one of the first MPs to seriously consider user rights within Canadian copyright law, a vocal supporter of net neutrality and more affordable wireless services, and a leading advocate for privacy protection and social media regulation.

Last week, Angus called a press conference to unveil his 6 point plan for digital policy, which emphasized accountability, privacy reform, and algorithmic transparency. Along the way, he derided the government’s Bill C-10 efforts as a political dumpster fire and voiced support for the creation of a new officer of parliament charged with responsibility for social media regulation. Charlie Angus joins the Law Bytes podcast this week to reflect on the failed bill C-10 and C-11, his concerns with the online harms consultation, and his hopes for the coming parliamentary session.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CPAC, NDP MP Charlie Angus Calls for Stronger Regulation of Facebook

Facebook has once again found itself in the political spotlight as Frances Haugen, a former data scientist and product manager with the company turned whistleblower, provided the source documents for an explosive investigative series in the Wall Street Journal followed by an appearance before a U.S. Senate committee. The Facebook Files series comes just as Canada is moving toward its own legislative response to Internet concerns, with an online harms consultation that provides a roadmap for future policies.

The Canadian initiative has sparked widespread criticism, but recent events may only increase the calls for legislative action. Taylor Owen, the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications in the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the latest revelations and what they might mean for the future of Canadian Internet regulation.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, The National, October 6, 2021

With yesterday’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meeting with experts on Bill C-10 and its implications for freedom of expression, this is a special Law Bytes episode featuring my opening statement and engagement with Members of Parliament. The discussion canvassed a wide range of issues including how regulating user generated content makes Canada an outlier worldwide, the impact on net neutrality, and why discoverability requirements constitute speech regulation. There is a second post that features my opening statement to the committee.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, May 17, 2021

When the proposed Rogers – Shaw merger was announced last month, it immediately became a flashpoint for Canada’s ongoing debate over wireless competition and pricing. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology moved quickly to put the proposed merger under the microscope with hearings that have included Rogers and Shaw along with academics, competitors, and regulators. I was invited to appear before the committee and provide my take on the implications of the merger. This week’s Law Bytes podcast goes inside the virtual hearing room with my short opening statement followed by clips of the Q &A with several Members of Parliament.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, April 6, 2021

The Canadian technology community has a long history of working together with government and regulators to counter online harms such botnets, spam, and malicious hacking. It therefore came as a surprise when the CRTC launched a consultation on addressing botnets that raised the possibility of the regulator stepping in with new blocking mandates. The consultation just completed its first round of comments and in addition to industry experts, there were others that opportunistically looked at the blocking discussion as the chance to promote copyright related blocking or other Internet blocking requirements.

Jonathan Curtis has been at the heart of battling botnets and online harms for decades with work at Bell, the CRTC, and leading security companies. He joins the Law Bytes podcast in a personal capacity to place the online security challenges in historical context and to outline both the benefits and risks that come from the potential blocking approaches raised by the CRTC.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

CRTC Botnet consultation

Credits:

Kaspersky, What is a Botnet?

As countries around the globe work to get their citizen vaccinated against COVID-19, a battle over intellectual property rules has emerged at the World Trade Organization. Last year, Canada passed legislation designed to ensure that patents would not pose a barrier to securing supplies of a vaccine or treatment. A year later, developing countries around the world have looked to the WTO to develop similar standards through a waiver process that would speed up access to, and production of, vaccines. Yet the proposal has run into opposition at the WTO, including from Canada.

Thiru Balasubramaniam is the Geneva Representative of Knowledge Ecology International, where he works on IP, health, and trade issues at the WTO, WIPO, and World Health Organization. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the recent developments at the WTO, the position of developed countries such as Canada, and what this means for global access to critical vaccines.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

India and South Africa TRIPS Waiver Proposal

Government of Canada TRIPS Council Statement, February 2021

Credits:

Al Jazeera English, Vaccine Patent Waiver Calls: 100 Countries Push for More Equitable Access

A Canadian coalition of consumer advocates, civil society and social justice groups, policy experts, activists and independent ISPs will come together in a national Day of Action on Tuesday to demand the immediate implementation of federal measures to deliver affordable internet and wireless services in Canada and to put an end to constantly increasing bills. This week’s Law Bytes podcast brings together three people that bring unique perspectives to the issue:

Madeleine Redfern, the former mayor of Iqaluit, Nunavut and currently the Chief Operating Officer at CanArctic Inuit Networks.
Dr. Mary Cavanagh, the Director of School of Information Studies (ÉSIS) at the University of Ottawa and an active researcher on consumer issues in the telecom marketplace.
Matt Stein, the CEO of Distributel Communications, a leading independent ISP and the chair of CNOC, the Competitive Network Operators of Canada

Madeleine, Mary, and Matt all joined together for a virtual conversation on the impact of access at the community level, the effect on consumers, the state of competition, and what Canada should be doing about the issue.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, Pandemic Highlights Internet Inequality in Canada

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is expected to soon introduce new legislation designed to address online harms through increased regulation. Reports indicate that the bill will target five categories of illegal content: hate speech, terrorist content, content that incites violence, child sexual exploitative content and non-consensual sharing of intimate content. The details will matter, however, as failure to ensure due process for content removal and strict limits on scope will raise constitutionality concerns.

David Kaye is a clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression from 2014 until 2020. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the challenges associated with balancing regulation and preserving freedom of expression online, the policy considerations that governments should be thinking about, and the risks that arise from getting the balance wrong.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

House of Commons, January 26, 2021

For years, Canada resisted extending the term of copyright beyond the international standard of life of the author plus 50 years. That appears to have come to an end with the USMCA, which requires an extension. The Canadian government has just launched a public consultation on the issue, identifying several “accompanying measures” to address concerns about the negative impact of term extension. For the many Canadians that participated in the recent copyright review process, the consultation document comes as huge disappointment as it seemingly rejects – with little legal basis – the review’s recommendation on establishing a registration requirement for the additional 20 years that would benefit both creators and the public.

The consultation is currently open until March 12th. Duke University’s Jennifer Jenkins, who is is a Clinical Professor of Law teaching intellectual property and Director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, joins the Law Bytes podcast this week to help sort through the likely implications of copyright term extension for Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Government of Canada Copyright Term Extension consultation – Due March 12, 2021

Government of Canada Copyright Term Extension Consultation Paper

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, February 24, 2020

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault seems set to table another bill that would establish Internet content regulations, including requirements for Internet platforms to proactively remove many different forms of content, some illegal and others harmful or possibly even “hurtful.” Few would argue with the proposition that some regulation is needed, but venturing into government regulated takedown requirements of otherwise legal content raises complex questions about how to strike the balance between safeguarding Canadians from online harms and protecting freedom of expression.

Vivek Krishnamurthy, is a colleague at the University of Ottawa, where he is the Samuelson-Gluschko Professor of Law and serves as the director of CIPPIC, the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the complexities of Internet content regulation and the risks that overbroad rules could stifle expression online and provide a dangerous model for countries less concerned with online civil liberties.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, Justin Trudeau Speaks on Canadians Detained in China, Combating Online Hate

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage last week started what it is calling a pre-study on Bill C-10, the Broadcasting Act reform bill. The hearings raises some significant procedural concerns given that the bill has not yet passed second reading so the committee is technically conducting a study about the bill, rather than studying the bill itself. Moreover, committee members have indicated that they have already been invited to provide potential amendment to a bill that hasn’t even made it out to committee, much less been the subject of any study.

Despite those qualms, I was pleased to be invited to appear before the committee and discuss some of the concerns that I’ve identified with the bill. This week’s podcast features my opening statement and the full exchanges that I had with Conservative MP Keven Waugh and Liberal MP Marcie Ian. The audio isn’t ideal, but I hope that the recordings give a sense of both the policy concerns with the bill and the kinds of questions being asked.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

The Broadcasting Act Blunder, Day 20: The Case Against Bill C-10

Credits:

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, February 5, 2021

Digital tax policy has emerged as major issue around the world. Canada is no exception. Late last year, the Canadian government announced plans to act on all three fronts: Bill C-10 seeks to address mandated Cancon payment and Finance Minster Chrystia Freeland has promised digital sales taxes by July and what sounds like a digital services tax in 2022.

What is a DST and how might Canada’s digital tax plans play out on the international front? I spoke with Georgetown University professor Itai Grinberg, a leading expert on cross-border taxation and digital tax issues on December 15, 2020, shortly after the government’s announcement. He joined the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the longstanding approach to multi-national tax policy and the emerging challenges that come from the digital economy.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Grinberg, International Taxation in an Era of Digital Disruption: Analyzing the Current Debate

Credits:

CityNews Toronto, HST/GST on Digital Purchases to Pay for Pandemic Recovery

The Law Bytes podcast took a breather over the holidays and into early January, but there seemingly is no break for digital policy issues. Over the past few weeks, Internet platforms have found themselves squarely in the public eye as company after company – from Shopify to Twitter to Facebook de-platformed former US President Donald Trump in response to the events in Washington earlier this month. Dr. Heidi Tworek of the University of British Columbia is one of Canada’s most prolific thinkers on Internet platform policies. She joins the podcast for a conversation about the role and responsibilities of Internet platforms, proposals for payments in the news sector, and insights what governments should be doing about better communicating with the public about the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Tworek, The Dangerous Inconsistencies of Digital Platform Policies

Tworek, Is News Property? How Digital Platforms are Resurrecting a Centuries-Old Question

Credits:

NBC News, President Trump Permanently Banned from Twitter

Canada is currently considering major reforms to how it regulates Internet services. Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s Bill C-10 would dramatically reshape the Broadcasting Act by regulating foreign Internet sites and services with the prospect of mandated registration, payments to support Canadian content, confidential data disclosures, and discoverability requirements. The bill would also remove policies supporting Canadian ownership of the broadcasting system and reduce expectations about Canadian participation in film and television productions. This week’s Law Bytes podcast takes a closer look at the implications of the bill, examining key concerns discussed in my ongoing Broadcasting Act blunder blog series.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Broadcasting Act Blunder series

Day 1: Why there is no Canadian Content Crisis

Day 2: What the Government Doesn’t Say About Creating a “Level Playing Field”

Day 3: Minister Guilbeault Says Bill C-10 Contains Economic Thresholds That Limit Internet Regulation. It Doesn’t

Day 4: Why Many News Sites are Captured by Bill C-10

Day 5: Narrow Exclusion of User Generated Content Services

Day 6: The Beginning of the End of Canadian Broadcast Ownership and Control Requirements,

Day 7: Beware Bill C-10’s Unintended Consequences

Day 8: The Unnecessary Discoverability Requirements

Day 9: Why Use Cross-Subsidies When the Government is Rolling out Tech Tax Policies?

Day 10: Downgrading the Role of Canadians in their

Canada’s new privacy bill is only a couple of weeks old but it is already generating debate in the House of Commons and careful study and commentary from the privacy community. As the biggest overhaul of Canada’s privacy rules in two decades, the bill will undoubtedly be the subject of deep analysis and lengthy committee review, likely to start early in 2021. Last week’s Law Bytes podcast featured Navdeep Bains, the Innovation, Science and Industry Minister, who is responsible for the bill. This week, Professor Emily Laidlaw of the University of Calgary, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law, joins the podcast with her take on the good, the bad, and the missed opportunities in Bill C-11.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify, Youtube or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Laidlaw, AB Lawg: Canada’s Proposed New Consumer Privacy Protection Act: The Good, the Bad, the Missed Opportunities

Credits:

CTV News, Government Introduces Privacy Bill

It has taken many years, but Canada finally appears ready to engage in an overhaul of its outdated private sector privacy law. Earlier this month, the Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains introduced Bill C-11, which, if enacted, would fundamentally re-write Canada’s privacy rules. The government intends to repeal PIPEDA and replace it with the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, which features a new privacy tribunal, tough penalties for non-compliance, and new provisions on issues such as data portability and data de-identification.

To discuss the thinking behind the bill and the government’s privacy plans for privacy, Minister Bains this week joins the Law Bytes podcast as he identifies some the benefits of the bill, clarifies the reasoning behind some of the more controversial policy decisions, and provides a roadmap for what comes next.

The podcast can be downloaded here, streamed on Youtube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Prime Minister of Canada, Remarks Updating Canadians on the COVID-19 Situation and new Privacy Protections

News Media Canada, the lobby group representing the major newspaper publishers in Canada recently launched a new campaign that calls for the creation of a government digital media regulatory agency that would have the power to establish mandated payments by Internet companies merely for linking to news articles. But not everyone in the sector – or even within News Media Canada – agrees with the position.

Jeff Elgie is the CEO and majority shareholder of Village Media, a digital-only media organization that operates local news and community websites throughout Ontario. He joins the Law Bytes podcast this week to talk about operating local news sites in the current environment, why he welcomes referral traffic from companies like Facebook and Google, and why though he respects News Media Canada, he hopes that a new association will emerge that better represents the diversity of news media in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, Letting Tech Giants Like Facebook Regulate Themselves ‘Simply not Working’ Says Minister

Last week, Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault introduced Bill C-10, legislation that would significantly reform Canada’s Broadcasting Act. A foundational part of what he has called a “get money from web giants” legislative strategy, the bill grants new powers to the CRTC to regulate online streaming services. Bram Abramson is one of Canada’s leading communications law lawyers and managing director of a new digital risk and rights strategy firm called 32M. Bram acted as an outside consultant on telecom regulation for the recent Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review panel – often called the Yale Report – but he joins the podcast to talk about the past, present and future of broadcast regulation, in particular what Bill C-10 could mean for the regulation of online streaming services.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CPAC, Heritage Minister Discusses Bill to Update Broadcasting Act – November 3, 2020

The world will be focused on the United States this week as the U.S. Presidential election is slated to take place on Tuesday, November 3rd. The role of social media has been in the spotlight in the US for months with calls for regulation, a range of responses from the major companies, and ongoing concerns about the immediate aftermath of the election and fears that their platforms could be weaponized if the winner is in dispute.

Canada had its own national election one year ago and enacted a range of reforms designed to address some of these issues. Mike Pal is a colleague at the University of Ottawa where he specializes in election law. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the Canadian experience including what changes were made, whether they were effective, what more can be done, and what Canada might teach others about confronting the challenges that lie at the intersection between elections and the Internet.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Michael Pal, Social Media and Democracy: Challenges for Election Law and Administration in Canada

Credits:

CTV News, Facebook is “Clear and Present Danger’ to Democracies: Technology Analyst

Facial recognition technologies seem likely to become an increasingly commonplace part of travel with scans for boarding passes, security clearance, customs review, and baggage pickup just some of the spots where your face could become the source of screening. Tamir Israel, staff lawyer at CIPPIC, the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, recently completed a major study on the use of facial recognition technologies at the border. He joins me on the LawBytes podcast to discuss the current use of the technologies, how they are likely to become even more ubiquitous in the future, and the state of Canadian law to ensure appropriate safeguards and privacy protections.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Facial Recognition at a Crossroads: Transformation at our Borders and Beyond

Credits:

Washington Post, Your Face is Now Your Boarding Pass, Here’s Why that Should Worry Us

As the second wave of COVID-19 seems to have arrived in many countries, the importance of measures such as social distancing, masks, testing, and tracing takes on increased importance. In Canada, the COVID Alert App is another important part of that toolkit. The app has been downloaded more than 4.5 million times and has been used to alert users to a potential exposure to the virus nearly 1,700 times. Despite the potential benefits, there remain many skeptics. Ann Cavoukian, a three-time Ontario privacy commissioner and one of Canada’s best known privacy experts, joins the LawBytes podcast this week to talk about the exposure notification and how it addresses potential privacy concerns.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

COVID Alert App

Credits:

CityTV News, Why Aren’t Canadians Downloading the COVID Alert App?

One year ago this week, Ian Kerr, a friend, colleague, teacher, and prescient scholar in the world of law, technology, and ethics, passed away. Ian’s loss sparked an outpouring of stories of a truly exceptional person whose friendship, mentorship, and “en-Kerr-agement”, left a remarkable legacy with so many citing his impact as a defining moment in their lives and careers. Given the impact Ian had on the privacy world, the IAPP launched an annual lecture in his honour at the IAPP Canada Privacy Symposium. While this year’s symposium was cancelled, the Kerr Memorial Lecture went ahead with an online streamed lecture.

I was honoured to deliver the inaugural lecture, titled Privacy and Zambonis in the Age of COVID-19. This week’s podcast features that lecture, which I think is most notable for exploring how Ian’s scholarship remains so fresh and relevant today with much to teach about the challenges of privacy in our current world.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

IAPP, The Ian Kerr Memorial Lecture

TikTok has found itself at the centre of a global geo-political fight between the United States and China. U.S. President Donald Trump, citing privacy, censorship, and national security concerns, first declared his plan to ban the app from the country and later followed up with an Executive Order prohibiting commercial activities with TikTok after a 45 day implementation period. What does the battle over TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps mean for their users and for the future of an open and accessible Internet? Anupam Chander, a law professor at Georgetown University and leading expert on the global regulation of new technologies, joins the podcast to explain the recent developments, unpack the legal issues, and assess the broader geo-political implications.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Chander, Trump Grants TikTok a Reprieve, But His Ban Threat Should be Permanently Retired

Credits:

CBS New York, President Trump Issues Executive Order on TikTok

The Canadian government released its COVID Alert, its COVID-19 exposure notification app, earlier this month starting first with a roll-out in Ontario. I’ve written how I’ve made the decision to install it, noting that the voluntary app does not collect personal information nor provide the government (or anyone else) with location information. The app underwent two privacy reviews, engaging both the federal privacy commissioner and the Ontario information and privacy commissioner.

Patricia Kosseim, the newly appointed Ontario privacy commissioner, had only been on the job for a few hours before she was dealing with the app that was bound to attract public attention. Commissioner Kosseim joins me on the podcast to discuss the app, her review, the interaction between different governments and commissioners, and why she installed the app the day it was released.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

IPC Recommendations to the Government of Ontario Regarding COVID Alert

Credits:

CBC News, COVID-19 Exposure Notification App Rolls Out in Ontario

The Schrems II decision, a recent European Court of Justice ruling that declares the Privacy Shield program that facilitates data transfers between the EU and the United States invalid, has major implications for modern commercial data related activities such as cross-border data transfers. The decision will reverberate in countries around the world, including Canada. For example, Canadian privacy law was found many years ago to meet the EU’s adequacy standard, but the Schrems II may call that into question.

Colin Bennett is a political science professor at the University of Victoria and one of Canada’s leading privacy experts. He has written multiple books on privacy and surveillance and focuses on the development and implementation of privacy protection policies at the domestic and international levels. He joins the podcast to discuss the Schrems II decision and what it means for global data transfers and the future of Canada’s privacy law framework.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Colin Bennett, The Schrems II Decision: Implications and Challenges for Canada

Credits:

Reuters, Privacy Advocate Wins New Battle Against Facebook

As the broad availability of genetic testing has mushroomed over the past two decades, privacy and potential discrimination concerns associated with testing results has increased. Until recently, Canada lagged behind other countries in this regard with no specific national legislation. That changed in 2017 with the enactment of the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act. The Act was quickly challenged on constitutional grounds, but earlier this month a divided Supreme Court of Canada upheld its validity.

The law underwent a remarkable parliamentary journey featuring opposition from successive governments, lobbying against the bill by the insurance industry, passage in the House of Commons despite objections from then-Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, and a court challenge in which the government supported the effort to declare the law invalid. Senator James Cowan, who was the lead proponent of the legislation, joins me on the podcast to discuss what prompted him to take on the issue and the unlikely path of Canada’s genetic non-discrimination law.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Supreme Court of Canada, Reference re Genetic Non-Discrimination Act

Credits:

CTV News, Genetic Non-Discrimination Law is Constitutional, Supreme Court Says

From the very outset of the COVID-19 outbreak, public health officials have identified the potential of contact tracing applications to both assist in conventional contact tracing activities and to warn individuals that they may have been in close proximity to someone who tested positive for the virus. The apps have unsurprisingly proven controversial, with some doubting their effectiveness and others concerned about the broader privacy and security implications.

The Government of Alberta was first off the mark with its ABTraceTogether app that launched in May 2020. Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton recently completed her review of the application with an extensive investigation into its privacy implications that included an examination of the technical details, how the app functions, the role of third parties, and access to the data by contact tracers and other officials. Commissioner Clayton joins me on the podcast to discuss her report, the positive aspects of the app implementation, and the ongoing concerns that her review uncovered.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada, ABTraceTogether: Privacy Impact Assessment Review Report

Credits:

Government of Alberta, Fight COVID-19 with ABTraceTogether

South Africa spent years embroiled in a high profile effort to update its copyright law responding to concerns from creators, the education community, and the visually impaired that the longstanding laws did not serve the national interest and were harming creativity and access to knowledge. Its Parliament ultimately passed progressive reforms in 2019, but the bill languished on the desk of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who faced enormous trade pressures from the United States and European Union to not sign the bill and stop it from becoming law. Last month, he seemingly caved to the pressure, citing constitutional concerns in sending it back to the Parliament.

Ben Cashdan is a South African documentary film maker and television producer who was active during the copyright reform process. He worked with Recreate ZA, which brought together a broad coalition of creatives, to advocate for both the interests of owning copyright in their own works, and in fairly using copyrighted materials in the creation of new works He joins me on the podcast this week to discuss the decade-long reform process, the external pressures, and explains why he thinks those pressures should be viewed as racist policies.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

SABC News, Various Groups Call for Signing of the Copyright Amendment Bill

The Supreme Court of Canada recently released its much anticipated Uber Technologies v. Heller decision, a landmark ruling with significant implications for the validity of online contracts and for employment relations in the gig economy. The court rejected an arbitration clause in an Uber contract with its drivers, finding the clause unconscionable.

The decision unsurprisingly quickly caught the attention of many in the legal, technology, business, and consumer advocacy communities. Professor Marina Pavlovic is a friend and colleague at the University of Ottawa, who appeared before the Supreme Court representing the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic as an intervener in the case. She joined me on the podcast to discuss the decision and to explain why she believes it is an earth shattering ruling for online contracts in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Uber Technologies v. Heller

Credits:

CBC News: The National, Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Uber Drivers, Opening Door to Lawsuit

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault recently suggested that the government’s support for news media should be replaced by copyright rules that would open the door to payments from internet companies such as Google and Facebook. Guilbeault indicated that a legislative package was being prepared for the fall that would include a press publishers’ right is that is commonly referred to as an internet link tax.

Julia Reda is a former Member of the European Parliament who for several years was the most active and visible politician in Europe when it came to copyright reform. That multi-year debate ultimately led to the adoption of a link tax and upload filters with a European directive. She joins me on the podcast to talk about that experience, why she believes a link tax harms freedom of expression and diversity of media, and what lessons Canada should draw from the European experience.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Banff Xchange, In Conversation With: Minister of Canadian Heritage, Steven Guilbeault

The state of Canadian privacy law has been ongoing source of concern with many experts concluding that the law is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. This is particularly true when contrasted with rules in the European Union that feature tough penalties and new privacy rights. It would appear that the province of Quebec has concluded that the waiting has gone on long enough. The provincial government recently introduced Bill 64, which if adopted would overhaul provincial privacy laws and provide a potential model for both the federal government and the other provinces.

Eloïse Gratton is a partner at the law firm of Borden Ladner Gervais in Montreal and recognized as one of Canada’s leading privacy law practitioners. She joins the podcast to break down Bill 64 and its implications for privacy enforcement, accountability and new privacy rights.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Proposed Amendments to Quebec Privacy Law: Impact for Businesses

Credits:

EuroNews, France fines Google €50 million using EU’s transparency and consent law

The world has been focused for the past several weeks on racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, with millions around the world taking to the streets to speak out against inequality and racism. Technology and concerns about racism and bias have been part of the discussion, with some of the world’s leading technology companies changing longstanding policies and practices. IBM has put an end all research, development and production of facial recognition technologies, while both Amazon and Microsoft said they would no longer sell the technology to local police departments.

Mutale Nkonde is an artificial intelligence policy analyst and a fellow at both the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and at Stanford University’s Digital Civil Society Lab. She joins me on the podcast this week from a busy home in Brooklyn, NY to talk about this moment in racial justice and technology, racial literacy, and the concerns about bias in artificial intelligence

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Daniels, Nkonde and Darakhshan, Advancing Racial Literacy in Tech

Credits:

France 24 English, Black Lives Matter Movement Gains Momentum Worldwide with Fresh Weekend of Protests

“Coded Bias”: New Film Looks at Fight Against Racial Bias in Facial Recognition & AI Technology

The U.S. approach to Internet platform liability has been characterized as the single most important legal protection for free speech on the Internet. Over the past two decades, every major Internet service has turned to the rules to ensure that liability for third party content posted on their sites rests with the poster, not the site or service. Those rules have proven increasingly controversial, however, with mounting calls for the companies to take on greater responsibility for content posted on their sites. The issue captured international attention last month when U.S. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that heightens the pressure for change.

Eric Goldman is a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law in the Silicon Valley where he co-directs the High Tech Law Institute. He has written extensively about Internet liability and appeared before the US Congress to testify on the issue. He joins me on the podcast to discuss the history behind the U.S. approach, its impact, and the implications of the Trump Executive Order.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Goldman, Trump’s ‘Preventing Online Censorship’ Executive Order is Pro-Censorship Political Theater

Credits:

CBC, Trump Takes Aim at Social Media Companies with Executive Order

Last month, Facebook revealed the names of the first 20 members of the Facebook Oversight Board, a body charged with conducting independent reviews of content removals. The group includes many well-known experts in the fields of human rights, journalism, law, and social media. The announcement received at best a mixed greeting – some welcomed the experiment in content moderation, while others argued that the board “will have no influence over anything that really matters in the world.”

Professor Nicolas Suzor of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia was named as one of the first 20 members. The author of Lawless: The Secret Rules that Govern our Digital Lives, Nicolas has been critical of Facebook and other Internet platforms and raised concerns about the oversight board when it was first announced. He joins me on the podcast to discuss the oversight board, the initial criticisms, and his views on how the board can have a positive impact in addressing complex issues that strive to balance freedom of expression with concerns about online harms. Note that our conversation was recorded before President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting Internet platforms after Twitter fact-checked one of his tweets and issued a warning on another. The podcast will examine those latest developments in a future episode.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Lawless: The Secret Rules that Govern our Digital Lives

Credits:

CNBC, Facebook Lays Out Details for Content Oversight Board

Dubbed by some as the worst film ever made, The Room has become a cult-like film classic. Written, directed, produced and starring Tommy Wiseau, the movie was the subject of the 2017 film The Disaster Artist and a documentary titled Room Full of Spoons by Canadian documentary filmmakers who wanted to tell the story of the film and its popularity. The documentary has been the subject of years of litigation with Wiseau at one point obtaining an injunction to stop its release.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently released an important decision in the case with significant implications for creators involving copyright, fair dealing, moral rights, and a host of other legal issues. Bob Tarantino, Counsel at Dentons Canada LLP, joins me on the podcast this week to discuss why the decision will be welcome news for documentary filmmakers.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Wiseau Studio, LLC v. Harper

Tarantino, Room Full of Spoons: The Contributions of Wiseau Studio v. Harper to Canadian Entertainment Law

Credits:

The Room, IMDBB page

The state of Internet access in Canada has been the subject of considerable debate in recent years as consumers and businesses alike assess whether Canada has kept pace with the need for universal access to fast, affordable broadband. What is now beyond debate is that there are still hundreds of thousands of Canadians without access to broadband services from local providers and that for those that have access, actual speeds may be lower than advertised and below the targets set by the CRTC, Canada’s broadcast and telecommunications regulator.

CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, manages the dot-ca domain and has played an increasingly important role on Internet policy matters. CIRA recently submitted a report on the urban-rural broadband divide as part of a CRTC process on potential barriers to broadband in underserved areas. Josh Tabish from CIRA joins me this week on the podcast to discuss the IPT, the CRTC submission, and the future of universal access to broadband in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

CIRA, New Internet Performance Data Shows the Staggering Scale of Canada’s Urban-Rural Digital Divide

Credits:

Global TV, Rural Communities Could Suffer from Broadband Internet Service Cuts

The Federal Court of Appeal delivered its long-awaited copyright ruling in the York University v. Access Copyright case last month. This latest decision effectively confirms that educational institutions can opt-out of the Access Copyright licence since it is not mandatory and that any claims of infringement will be left to copyright owners to address, not Access Copyright. The decision is a big win for York University and the education community though they were not left completely happy with the outcome given the court’s fair dealing analysis.

The decision also represents a major validation for University of Toronto law professor Ariel Katz, whose research and publications, which made the convincing case that a ‘mandatory tariff’ lacks any basis in law”, was directly acknowledged by the court and played a huge role in its analysis. Professor Katz joins me on the podcast this week to talk about the case, the role of collective licensing in copyright law, and what might come next for a case that may force Access Copyright to rethink the value proposition of its licence.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Spectre: Canadian Copyright and the Mandatory Tariff – Part I

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, May 24, 2018

As governments grapple with challenging questions about when and how to relax the current Coronavirus restrictions and give the green light to re-opening businesses, schools, and community spaces, there has been increasing emphasis on the potential for technology to assist with critical activities such as contact tracing. Canada has moved more cautiously on this issue, but the introduction of contact tracing apps seem likely. What will the apps look like and what legal framework is needed to safeguard a myriad of privacy and civil liberties concerns?

Lilian Edwards is a law professor at Newcastle University where she is the Professor of Law, Innovation and Society. She has been leading a fascinating project that seeks to address the legal concerns that might arise from contact tracing apps with a model bill that could be used to establish safeguards and other legal limits. She joined me on the podcast to talk about the latest developments on contact tracing apps, the growing schism between countries, and the legal rules that could address some of the public concerns.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

The Coronavirus (Safeguards) Bill 2020: Proposed protections for digital interventions and in relation to immunity certificates

Credits:

CBC News, How Your Phone Could Play a Role in Coronavirus Contact Tracing

Fair dealing – the Canadian version of fair use – has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as a users’ right. The need for a large and liberal interpretation to the right is a cornerstone of Canadian copyright law. With millions of Canadian students at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the importance of fair dealing has grown as teachers seek to provide access to teaching materials and ensure they remain compliant with the law. Sam Trosow and Lisa Macklem of Western University recently published a detailed analysis on fair dealing and emergency remote teaching in Canada. They joined me on the podcast to discuss fair dealing, its application during the current pandemic, and recent developments involving reading aloud programs as well as the Federal Court of Appeal decision in York University v. Access Copyright.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Trosow and Macklem, Fair Dealing and Emergency Remote Teaching in Canada

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CITYNews, Students, Teachers Navigate E-Learning as Program Launches Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Communities around the world raced to respond to the coronavirus pandemic last month by shutting down as businesses, schools, and libraries were rendered unavailable seemingly in an instant. One of the effects of the shutdown was that hundreds of millions of books were immediately made inaccessible to students, teachers, and the wider community. The Internet Archive responded with the National Emergency Library, a tweaked version of its Controlled Digital Lending program that brings scanned versions of millions of lawfully acquired books to readers under strict controls.

I’ve been a longstanding board member of Internet Archive Canada and was pleased to be joined on the podcast by Brewster Kahle (founder of Internet Archive), Chris Freeland (Director of Open Libraries at Internet Archive), and Kyle Courtney (lawyer, librarian and the copyright advisor at Harvard University) to talk about the Internet Archive, controlled digital lending, the National Emergency Library, and the copyright implications of recent developments.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

NBC Today, The Internet Archive Wants to be a Digital Library For Everything

Bill C-13, the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, was the Canadian government’s legislative response to the Coronavirus pandemic. In addition a host of economic measures, the bill included some unexpected patent law provisions designed to speed access to essential medicines, devices or treatments. Matthew Herder, the director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University, joins the podcast discuss the new Canadian rules, the use of compulsory licensing to enhance access to medicines, and other innovative approaches to overcoming potential access barriers raised by intellectual property laws.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CTV News, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Says a Coronavirus Vaccine is ‘Probably’ a Year Away

Millions of Canadians are at home, schools are closed, and Canada is undergoing an unprecedented shift to distance or online learning. Adapting course materials to the online learning environment can create significant new challenges for teachers and students alike. Open educational resources (OERs) provides a model for convenient, cost-effective access with no copyright barriers to worry about, expensive texts to purchase, or restrictions on adaptation, customization or re-use. David Porter, who has been a leader in open and distance learning since the 1990s, joins the podcast to discuss how the current shift to online learning places the spotlight on the benefits of OERs and open textbooks.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CityTV News Toronto, Ontario Schools Closed for 2 Weeks After March Break

CBC News, Canadian Universities Cancel Classes in Response to COVID-19

With experts warning that the Coronavirus pandemic may last well into next year, the urgency of limiting the spread of the virus is sure to increase. Cellphone and social media data will increasingly be viewed as a valuable source of information for public health authorities, as they seek to identify outbreaks in communities more quickly, rapidly warn people that they may have been exposed to the virus, or enforce quarantining orders. Israel has implemented a system that involves the collection and use of cellphone location data to identify at-risk individuals, who may receive text messages warning that they need to self-quarantine. That system has been challenged at the Israeli Supreme Court, which last week rejected elements of the plan and established a requirement of Israeli parliament approval for the measures. Tel Aviv University law professor Michael Birnhack joins me on the podcast to discuss the details of the measures and the civil liberties and democratic concerns they raise, even at a time of global crisis.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

i24 News, Israeli Gov’t Approves COVID19 Mass Surveillance Measure

Over the past several weeks, our world has been upended by Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic. Given the head-spinning changes taking place in our society, there is a widely recognized need for immediate open access to the latest research and medical developments. Yet despite the fact that the public often funds research in the area, the conventional publishing model often places that information behind paywalls or subscription fees. Heather Joseph, the Executive Director of SPARC, joins me on the podcast this week to discuss the response from publishers, funders and other stakeholders to the urgent need for access to COVID-19 research and what the response tells us about the issue of open access to scholarly research more broadly.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, Coronavirus Outbreak: Canadian Health Minister Announces $27M for COVID-19 Research

The ratification of the Canada – US- Mexico Trade Agreement has captured considerable attention with several committees studying Bill C-4, the bill aimed at ratifying the deal. Over the past month, I’ve had the opportunity to appear before two of those committees – the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade and on Industry, Science and Technology – where I discussed the digital law and policy implications the agreement. This week’s podcast features excerpts from those appearances, including my opening statement and the ensuing discussion with several MPs on copyright term extension, cultural policy, and privacy.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, USMCA Tops Agenda When Canadian Parliament Resumes

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, February 24, 2020

Standing Committee on International Trade, February 19, 2020

Facial recognition technologies have attracted mounting attention in recent weeks led by a New York Times report on Clearview AI, soon followed by revelations of police use of the service in multiple Canadian cities. In fact, just after recording the interview for this podcast, there were revelations that the Clearview AI service has been used in Canada by an even wider array of police forces, retailers, insurance investigators, and others than previously imagined. In some instances, those organizations had denied using the service. There are now several privacy commissioner investigations into the situation.

To examine the concerns associated with facial recognition technologies and what we should do about it, I’m joined on the podcast this week by Nasma Ahmed, a technologist and community organizer that works within the intersections of social justice, technology and policy. She recently published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail with McGill’s Taylor Owen calling for a pause on the technology. Nasma is currently Director of the Digital Justice Lab, which is based in Toronto.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Taylor Owen and Nasma Ahmed, Let’s Face the Facts: To Ensure Our Digital Rights, We Must Hit Pause on Facial-Recognition Technology

Credits:

Global News, Controversial Facial Recognition Tool Admittedly Used by Toronto Police

CBC News, Why Experts Are Concerned About Facial-Recognition Technology

Copyright term extension has emerged as a major policy issue in Canada in recent months. Canada’s general copyright term is life of the author plus 50 years and successive governments have rejected lobbying pressure to extend by an additional 20 years. That changed with the new NAFTA, which includes a life plus 70 years requirement. Canada negotiated a 30 month transition period with no need to extend the copyright term during that time. The Canadian copyright review recommended that any extension include a registration requirement for the extra 20 years.

Paul Heald is a law professor at the University of Illinois, where he has led the world in conducting extensive empirical analysis on the effects of copyright term extension and the value of the public domain. His work has used some creative methods examining data on sites such as Amazon and Wikipedia to learn more about the effects of term extension. He joined me on the podcast to discuss his findings and new work he has been doing on the data in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

How Copyright Keeps Works Disappeared

The Valuation of Unprotected Works: A Case Study of Public Domain Photographs on Wikipedia

Credits:

House of Commons, January 31, 2020

The long awaited CRTC review into wireless services kicks off this week with virtually every key stakeholder – the big carriers, regional carriers, independent carriers, consumer groups, and many others – making their way to Gatineau to set out their vision for the future of wireless services in Canada. Elliot Noss, the CEO of Tucows, owns Ting, an MVNO that has carved out a niche in the U.S. market, but does not offer service in Canada as the big carriers won’t play ball. Elliot joins the podcast in advance of the CRTC hearing to discuss the state of Canadian wireless market, the role of MVNOs, and what he thinks needs to happen in Canada to make pricing more competitive.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, Why is Canada-based Ting is not Available for Cell Phone Users in Canada?

The release of the much-anticipated Broadcast and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel report late last month sparked a torrent of discussion and debate. The 235 page report – often referred to as the BTLR or Yale Report – features 97 recommendations that covers telecom, broadcast, the future of the CBC, online harms, digital taxation, and a myriad of other issues. Janet Yale, the panel chair, joins the podcast this week to talk about the report. Our wide ranging conversation touches on the policy objectives of the panel, the news regulation concerns, net neutrality, consumer costs, and what may lie ahead for communications law reform.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel

Credits:

CTV News, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault on Licensing Requirements for Media

CTV News, Guilbeault Walks Back Earlier Comments, Says Ottawa Won’t License News Outlets

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 38 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podcast – Episode 38 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2020.

Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

The Lawbytes podcast resumes for another season with a special episode on privacy as I’m joined on the podcast by Daniel Therrien, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Commissioner Therrien recently used Data Privacy Day to deliver a speech at the University of Ottawa focused on privacy reforms and a new consultation on AI and privacy. He joined me on the podcast to talk about his term as commissioner, the major challenges he’s faced, the state of Canadian privacy law, and the prospect for reform. Following our conversation, the podcast features audio of the Commissioner’s bilingual speech at the law school.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CPAC, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien Discusses His Latest Annual Report

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with important Supreme Court cases, legislative proposals, committee reports, expert panels, and political promises to reform existing laws and regulation. For this final Lawbytes podcast of 2019, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and think a bit about what may lie ahead next year. I focus on five issues: the “euro-fication” of Canadian digital policy, the debate over the competitiveness of the Canadian wireless market, the many calls for privacy law reform, the future of Canadian copyright reform, and the review of Canadian broadcast and telecom law.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Ian R. Kerr Memorial Fund – the Kerr Fellows

Ministerial Mandate Letters

Prioritizing Competition: Navdeep Bains Tries to Flip Canada’s Telecom-Policy Script

From Innovation to Regulation: Why the Liberals Have Lost Their Way on Digital Policy

The Authoritative Canadian Copyright Review: Industry Committee Issues Balanced, Forward-Looking Report on the Future of Canadian Copyright Law

Credits:

Global News, Justin Trudeau Speaks on Canadians Detained in China, Combating Online Hate

BNN Bloomberg, High Wireless, Data Costs in Canada ‘Have a Drag’ on the Economy: Expert

Canadian Press, Privacy Commissioner Calls for New Measures to Protect Personal Information

House of Commons, June 3, 2019

CBC News, Ottawa’s Fight with Netflix Reignites Age-Old Debate

Site blocking has been on the policy and regulatory radar screen for several years in Canada, starting with the Bell-led Fairplay proposal to the CRTC and demands for site blocking as part of the copyright review. With both the CRTC and elected officials rejecting site blocking proposals, rights holders have turned to the courts. Last month, a Federal Court of Canada judge issued a major website blocking decision granting a request from Bell, Rogers, and Groupe TVA to block access to a series of GoldTV streaming websites.

The case is an important one, representing the first extensive website blocking order in Canada. I’ve argued that it is also deeply flawed from both a policy and legal perspective, substituting the views of one judge over Parliament’s judgment and relying on a foreign copyright case that was rendered under markedly different legal rules than those found in Canada. Allen Mendelsohn, a Montreal based Internet lawyer and sessional lecturer at McGill University joins the podcast this week to help sort through the issues.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Site blocking! Reverse class actions! It’s the internet and copyright law jurisprudence last two weeks in review

Credits:

House of Commons, March 27, 2018

BNN Bloomberg, Landmark ruling to block piracy site among the only legal remedies: Lawyer

The dot-org domain extension was established as one of the first top-level domains in 1985 alongside dot-com, dot-net and a handful of others. In 2002, administration over the domain was awarded to the Public Interest Registry (PIR), a non-profit established by the Internet Society (ISOC), to run the extension. PIR recently announced that it was being purchased by Ethos Capital, a private equity firm that includes a former CEO of ICANN among its founders. With a rumoured purchase price of over $1 billion dollars, there is big money for ISOC but the deal has left the non-profit community worried about potential price increases and policy changes to the domain that could impact online speech. Elliot Harmon, Activism Director with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently wrote about the issue and has been working on a campaign with NGOs around the world opposed to the deal. He joined on the podcast to discuss the background behind dot-org, the concerns with the sale, and what can be done about it.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Public Interest Registry on TALK BUSINESS 360TV

Show Notes:

The Register, Internet World Despairs as Non-Profit .org Sold For $$$$ to Private Equity Firm, Price Caps Axed

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 34 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podca

One of Canada’s longstanding digital and economic policy concerns has involved innovation, with fears that the Canadian economy is failing to keep pace with other, more innovative economies. Some point to intellectual property as a critical part of policy equation, arguing that stronger IP laws would help incentivize greater innovation. Economists Nancy Gallini and Aidan Hollis recently released an interesting report for the Institute for Research on Public Policy examining the role of patents and patent policy in Canadian innovators’ decisions to sell their IP rather than continue to develop it in Canada, and the incentives driving this decision. Professor Hollis joins the podcast this week to discuss the report, its link to innovation policy, and what the government could consider to address ongoing concerns.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

To Sell or Scale Up: Canada’s Patent Strategy in a Knowledge Economy

Credits:

House of Commons, November 27, 2018

David Graham was not your typical Member of Parliament. A Liberal MP from the Quebec riding of Laurentides-Labelle, Graham brought a background in open source issues to Parliament Hill. Over his four years as an MP, Graham was seemingly everywhere when it came to digital policy. Whether in the House of Commons talking net neutrality, the Industry committee copyright review or the Ethics committee work on privacy, Graham emerged as the rare MP equally at home in the technology and policy worlds. Graham’s bid for re-election fell short, but this week he joins the Lawbytes podcast to reflect on his experience in Ottawa with thoughts on copyright, privacy, technology policy, and the use of digital tools for advocacy purposes.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, May 28, 2019

House of Commons, May 22, 2018

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, June 19, 2018

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 32 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podcast – Episode 32 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Micha

Is the Canadian media in a state of financial crisis? Stories on newspaper closures and journalist layoffs have become frustratingly commonplace in recent years, leading to increasingly vocal calls for policy reforms or public funding measures. But Marc Edge, a longtime journalist, editor, and professor at universities around the world, has studied the state of the industry for years and offers a different take. While he is quick to point out the crisis of journalism given cutbacks, he argues that a journalism crisis is not the same as a media crisis. He joins the podcast this week to discuss the historical development of the Canadian media and what the data tells us about the current situation in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Marc Edge website

Credits:

House of Commons, May 31, 2019

The Canadian copyright review conducted earlier this year heard evidence on a remarkably broad range of issues. One issue that seemed to take committee members by surprise was crown copyright, which captured considerable attention and became the subject of two supplemental opinions from the Conservative and NDP members as well as the basis for a private members bill from NDP MP Brian Masse. Why all the interest in crown copyright?

This week’s Lawbytes podcast digs into crown copyright with two guests. First, Amanda Wakaruk, a copyright librarian at the University of Alberta and one of the country’s leading advocates on the issue joins me to explain the concept of crown copyright and why she thinks it needs to be abolished. I’m then joined by my colleague Professor Jeremy DeBeer to discuss the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on Keatley Surveying v. Teranet, which was on the first opportunities for Canada’s highest court to grapple with the scope and implications of crown copyright.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Copyright Act

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology Copyright Review

Library and Archival Community Letter on Crown Copyright

Keatley Surveying v. Teranet

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, May 30, 2019

House of Commons, June 3, 2019

Transcript:

Coming into the 2019 federal election, there were widespread concerns regarding disinformation campaigns, foreign interference, social media advertising and manipulation, and fake news. The federal government enacted legislation designed to foster greater transparency on political advertising, but on the heels of elections elsewhere, the prospect of online harms to the electoral process appeared very real. Taylor Owen of McGill University set out to find out what was actually taking place online. He joined me on the podcast shortly after the election to discuss how social media was being used, political advertising trends, the role of fact checking, and the presence of misinformation and fake news.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Digital Democracy Project

Credits:

CBC News, Election Interference is Happening in Canada: What You Can do to Stop It

CPAC, Are You Concerned With Fake News and Disinformation in Canada?

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 29 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podcast – Episode 29 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

CBC:

Distortion is a cer

This week is open access week, an opportunity to celebrate and raise awareness of the emergence and continued growth of open access. Countries have been taking increasingly strong steps toward making their research openly available, with mandates that require researchers who accept public grants to make their published research results freely available online within a reasonable time period. Leslie Chan, a professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough and one of the earliest global leaders on open access, joins the podcast this week to discuss its past, present and future.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Chan et al, Contextualizing Openness: Situating Open Science

Piwowar et al, The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles

Credits:

Washington Post, Biden Unveils Launch of Major, Open-Access Database to Advance Cancer Research

UC Berkeley, Nobel Laureate Randy Schekman on Elsevier, Open Access

Transcript:

Law Bytes Podcast – Episode 28 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service Law Bytes Podcast – Episode 28 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Digital issues were expected to garner attention in the 2019 Canadian federal election campaign. Over the course of the past few weeks, all the main political parties have had something to say about the high cost of cellphone prices in Canada and the prospect of implementing new taxes on tech companies. Laura Tribe, the Executive Director of OpenMedia, joined the podcast to talk about election 2019 and digital policies in a conversation that focused on wireless services and Internet taxes as well as privacy, intermediary liability, trade, and copyright.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, Canada Election: Justin Trudeau Announces Cell Phone Cuts, Change to Taxes

CBC News, Andrew Scheer’s Full Post-Debate Scrum

CTV News, NDP Unveils Plan to Reduce Canadian’s Internet and Cellphone Bills

CTV News, Elizabeth May Unveils Green Party Platform in Toronto

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 27 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podcast – Episode 27 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

Justin Tru

The future of Canadian communications law has emerged as political hot potato in recent weeks with political parties engaged in finger pointing over who is acting – or failing to act – on issues closely aligned to cultural policy. Just prior to the election call, Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton who has been one of Canada’s most prominent experts on communications and cultural policy, joined the podcast to provide his take on the initial report from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel, the tech-lash against companies such as Google and Facebook, and what the numbers tell us about the state of media and advertising in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Canadian Media Concentration Research Project

Credits:

In the House: Why Do They Not Make Them Pay Their Fair Share?

Last month, Canada’s telecom regulator, the CRTC, issued its final decision in a lengthy battle over the rates that independent Internet providers pay for wholesale access to the broadband networks run by big incumbents such as Bell and Rogers. The Commission slashed previous rates and made its decision retroactive, an approach that sparked anger and lawsuits from the incumbents who are now in Canadian courts seeking to overturn the ruling and stop it from taking effect. Meanwhile, several Canadian independent ISPs wasted no time in responding to the decision, dropping their consumer prices and neatly illustrating the impact of lower rates and more competition. George Burger, one of the founders of vMedia and a frequent commentator on Canadian telecom issues, joined me on the podcast to discuss the decision and the state of competition for Canadian Internet services.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Burger, Big telcos have no business howling over CRTC decision that encourages fair internet prices

CRTC promotes competition for broadband Internet services by setting lower wholesale rates

Credits:

CBC News, Internet Price Hikes Coming for Canadians

The Lang & O’Leary Exchange – Usage Based Billing

CBC News, Bell to Cut 200,000 Customers From Internet Expansion After CRTC Decision

CityNews Toronto, NDP Promising to Put Cap on Cellphone, Internet Bills

The first episode of the new season of the Lawbytes podcast is dedicated to my good friend and colleague Ian Kerr, a giant in the law and technology field, who passed away on August 27th after battling complications arising from cancer. Ian’s generosity, warmth, and good humour touched the lives of thousands of people. Whether national privacy commissioners or first-year law students, he made time for everyone, offering encouragement, insight, and a deeply held view that everyone had an opportunity and responsibility to help shape our collective digital future. The Faculty of Law plans to celebrate Ian in an event scheduled for Friday, September 27th at 11:30 am. There is also an Ian R. Kerr Memorial Fund that will support scholarships, fellowships, activities and initiatives honouring his legacy.

This podcast episode wasn’t easy to create but I wanted to highlight his exceptional talent as a teacher and advocate. The episode features five clips that each call attention to different strengths. Ian reading from Carl Sagan opens the episode, highlighting Ian’s innate ability to bridge disciplines and reach a wide audience. The episode also features two house of commons committee appearances: one demonstrating how Ian was so often prescient on key issues and the other illustrating his deep commitment to gender equality. There is also an interview showcasing his advocacy skills and a lecture at the University of Montreal on health and AI, which holds personal significance since we spent the day together along with past and, as it turned out, future colleagues.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Ian Kerr Tributes

Obituary for Ian Randall Kerr

In Memoriam: My Dear Friend and Colleague Ian Kerr

Faculty of Law Mourns the Death of Professor Ian Kerr

Ian Kerr 1965-2019

Credits:

CBC Radio, An Excerpt From ‘A Pale Blue Dot’

Standing Committee on Access to Information, Ethics and Privacy, June 12, 2012

Standing Committee on Access to Information, Ethics and Privacy, April 4, 2017

The last episode of Season One of the Lawbytes podcast (new episodes will resume in September) returns to WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization and its proposed BRIP database. The BRIP database, which stands for Building Respect for Intellectual Property, will be a database of allegedly infringing websites. While some of the details remain sketchy, the basics are that BRIP will be a database of allegedly infringing websites that could be used by advertisers to stop advertising on those sites, payment providers to stop service, or even site blocking initiatives to mandate ISP blocking. Yet the BRIP database currently envisions the possibility of lobby groups such as the movie and music associations inserting sites in the database with no oversight, no review, and not even any transparent standards.

That approach caught the attention of Rick Shera, a lawyer in New Zealand with Lowndes Jordan and one of that country’s leading IP and Internet law experts. Rick posted a Twitter stream on the risks associated with false IP accusations, speaking from the experience of one of his clients. He joins me on the podcast this week to discuss the experience of MEGA and the risks of false IP claims.

While the technical connection between Canada and New Zealand wasn’t great leading to some patchy sound during the conversation, his story is an important one. The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

WIPO, WIPO’s Knowledge Network in 90 Seconds

Kodi Customs, MEGA.NZ 50gb Free Cloud Storage

The question of what responsibility should lie with Internet platforms for the content they host that is posted by their users has been the subject of debate around in the world as politicians, regulators, and the broader public seek to navigate policy choices to combat harmful speech that have implications for freedom of expression, online harms, competition, and innovation. To help sort through the policy options, Daphne Keller, the Director of Intermediary Liability at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, joins the podcast this week. She recently posted an excellent article on the Balkinization blog that provided a helpful guide to intermediary liability law making and agreed to chat about how policy makers can adjust the dials on new rules to best reflect national goals.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Keller, Build Your Own Intermediary Liability Law: A Kit for Policy Wonks of All Ages

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, May 28, 2019

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 22 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podcast – Episode 22 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Canada has a well-earned reputation for some of the highest wireless prices in the world with numerous comparative studies finding that consumers pay relatively high prices for low amounts of data. There are obviously many factors behind pricing, but for many consumers the top line issue is how much does the wireless service cost and how much data do I get? Rewheel Research, a Finland based consultancy, has been at the forefront of pricing comparisons with extensive analysis of mobile data pricing in countries around the world. Its reports have often called out Canada, recently noting that prices are “a world apart” from more competitive markets. With Canadian telco giant Telus commissioning a study to challenge the Rewheel research, I’m joined this week on the Lawbytes podcast by Antonios Drossos, managing partner of the firm, who talked to me from Helsinki about their findings, what lies behind Canada’s wireless pricing, and the Telus-backed study.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Rewheel Research: The state of 4G pricing – 1H2019 – Digital Fuel Monitor 11th release

Credits:

House of Commons, June 10, 2019

Transcript:

Law Bytes Podcast – Episode 21 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service Law Bytes Podcast – Episode 21 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Technology transfer in the university context has emerged as significant policy issue with governments seeking to maximize the benefits of public investment in research at Canadian universities. For example, the Ford government in Ontario recently launched an expert panel on intellectual property squarely focused on the issue that speaks to maximizing commercialization opportunities with an emphasis on intellectual property. But what if maximizing commercialization opportunities does not mean prioritizing patents? Professor Richard Gold from McGill University’s Faculty of Law argues that universities should get out of the patenting game. He joins me on the Lawbytes podcast this week to discuss the failure of patent first strategies and why open science may offer a better path for commercialization success.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Gold, Should Universities Get Out of the Patent Business

Credits:

AUTM, About Technology Transfer

TechCrunch, Judge Rules CRISPR-Cas9 Belongs to Broad Institute

SGC Channel, Welcome to SGC Toronto

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 20 transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service LawBytes Podcast – Episode 20 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez recently appeared to pre-empt the government’s broadcast and telecommunications legislative review panel in his response to the panel’s interim report. Rodriguez indicated that the government will move to mandate new contributions and Cancon requirements for online services regardless of what the panel recommends. New creators leveraging online platforms don’t typically participate in government consultations, but that doesn’t mean their voice and experience should be ignored. Ryerson’s Irene Berkowitz recently released Watchtime Canada, a report on the role YouTube plays in fostering opportunities for creators. The study found an eco-system that provides thousands of Canadians with full-time employment opportunities and export strategies that outshine the traditional creative sector. She joins me on the podcast this week to discuss the report and what it might mean for Canadian cultural policy.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Watchtime Canada report

Credits:

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, May 2, 2019

Unbox Therapy, This Smartphone Changes Everything

Gigi Gorgeous, This is Everything

How to Cake It, GIANT Juice Box Cake with JUICE INSIDE

The Icing Artist, Mini ANIMAL CAKES

Vanoss Gaming

Transcript:

Law Bytes podcast – Episode19 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix

Open banking, which is designed to allow customers to easily share data held by their banks with third parties, has been attracting considerable attention in recent months. The Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce conducted a study on open banking this spring with a report released in late June. I was invited to appear before the committee to discuss regulatory concerns, particularly with respect to privacy and data protection. Given that it is a holiday week in Canada for Canada Day, this week’s podcast adopts a different approach with excerpts from that appearance, including my opening statement and the ensuing discussion with several senators on the need for regulatory reforms.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. A transcript of the appearance can be found here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Senate Report – Open Banking: What it Means for You

Transcript of Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce

Credits:

Senate Chamber, June 19, 2019

Open Banking, What Is Open Banking

PwCCanada, Canadian Banks: CEO Spotlight with Darryl White, CEO of BMO Financial Group

What to do about Huawei? The Chinese telecom giant has emerged as one of Canada’s most challenging policy issues, raising concerns involving competition, communications, security, and trade not to mention kidnappings and arrests of corporate personnel. The government has repeatedly promised to articulate a policy on the use of Huawei equipment in Canada’s next generation wireless networks only to regularly delay doing so. Dr. Christopher Parsons, a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab, the world-famous cyber-security lab located at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, joins the podcast to help sort through fact from fiction when it comes to Huawei.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, Should Canada Ban Huawei?

CBC News, Should Canada Trust Huawei?

Sky News, Should UK Be Using 5G Technology from Chinese Companies?

Canadian Press, Reports Canada Banning Huawei from 5G ‘Speculation’: Goodale

Transcript:

Law Bytes Podcast – Episode 17 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

CBC News:

Front and centre in Beijing today, a report from Reuters that the U.S. president is preparing to sign an executive order making it impossible for American companies to use Huawei’s equipment. A purely political move made without a shred of evidence, China says. The order would be confirmation of the U.S. stance that Huawei’s equipment could easily be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans. The U.S. Australia and New Zealand have all banned Huawei from their networks. Canada hasn’t gone that route nor has Britain. But that may soon change.

In December 2017, the Canadian government launched its much-anticipated and much-lobbied review of Canadian copyright law, tasking the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to lead the way. After months of study and hundreds of witnesses and briefs, the committee released its authoritative report with 36 recommendations earlier this month. Carys Craig, a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and one of Canada’s leading copyright law experts, joins the podcast to help sort through the report and to consider what it means for the future of Canadian copyright law.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology, Statutory Review of the Copyright Act

The Authoritative Canadian Copyright Review: Industry Committee Issues Balanced, Forward-Looking Report on the Future of Canadian Copyright Law

Credits:

House of Commons, June 3, 2019

Transcript:

Law Bytes Podcast – Episode 16 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

Dan Ruimy:

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I have the honour to present in both official languages the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Industry Science and Technology entitled statutory review of the copyright

The new NAFTA – dubbed the USMCA or CUSMA depending on where you live – took a significant step forward recently with the introduction of Canadian legislation designed to ratify the treaty. The economic implications of the agreement are enormous, particularly with respect to digital issues and intellectual property. Myra Tawfik, a law professor at the University of Windsor and Senior Fellow with CIGI, joins the podcast this week to discuss Canada’s longstanding history of facing external pressure on copyright, the role that trade negotiations now play with that pressure, and the implications of the USMCA.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Canada Introduces USMCA Implementation Bill…Without a Copyright Term Extension Provision

Credits:

CBC News, Canada Introduces NAFTA 2.0 Implementation Bill

CNBC, Trump: Trade Deal Protects Patents, Intellectual Property

Globe and Mail, Flashback: President Clinton’s Original Signing of NAFTA Into Law in 1993

CNBC, Key Differences Between the New USMCA Trade Deal and NAFTA

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 15 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

CBC News:

Signed sealed and now delivered to the House of Commons. Just last hour the Federal Government tabled a bill to implement the new NAFTA a deal that Canada the US and Mexico reached six months ago after 15 months of negotiations.

The debate over big data, privacy and its implications for democracy came to Ottawa last week as the International Grand Committee brought together the world’s biggest technology companies, politicians from around the world, and leading thinkers. Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics joins the podcast this week to reflect on the three days of hearings, the prospect for global reforms, and what comes next for the committee.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy

Credits:

CBC, Politicians Grill Facebook, Google, Twitter over Privacy, Disinformation

CBC, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Ignores Subpoena to Appear at Privacy Hearing

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 14 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

CBC News:

The world’s largest tech firms were on the defensive today in Ottawa. Canada hosted a committee of politicians from nearly a dozen countries which got the chance to grill representatives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter about how they manage data, how they handle the spread of misinformation, and whether they’re a potential threat to democracy. The committee also heard from observers of the industry who are worried about what they’re seeing.

Michael Geist:

The debate over big data, privacy, and its implications for democracy came to Ottawa last week as the so-called international grand committee brought together the world’s biggest tech companies, politicians from around the world and leading thinkers for three da

Years of public consultation on Canadian digital policy hit an important milestone last week as Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains released the government’s Digital Charter. Canada’s Digital Charter touches on a wide range of issues, covering everything from universal Internet access to privacy law reform. To help sort through the digital charter and its implications, I’m joined on the podcast this week by Professor Teresa Scassa, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Canada’s Digital Charter

Canada’s Digital Charter Represents a Sea Change in Privacy Law, But Several Unaddressed Issues Remain

Credits:

The Canadian Press, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains Introduces Digital Charter

CBC News, Security, Control Over Personal Data Outlined in Canada’s New Digital Charter

FactPointVideo, Trudeau Announces Digital Charter to Fight Fake News, Online Hate

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 13 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is LawBytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

Navdeep Bains:

We can’t ignore some of these new complex challenges that have emerged. At the heart of these new challenges is the fundamental question of trust. How can Canadians believe in the good of this online world when they’re confronted with a video of 51 innocent people gunned down during prayer in Christchurch and that video goes viral. How can they trust their data will be used to improve their lives wh

The free and open access to law movement is devoted to providing free and open online access to legal information. This includes case law, legislation, treaties, law reform proposals and legal scholarship. This week’s Lawbytes podcast highlights perspectives on free and open access to law from Australia and Canada. During a recent trip to Australia, I spoke with Professor Graham Greenleaf, one of the pioneers of the movement, who co-founded AustLII, the Australasian Legal Information Institute. Following in the footsteps of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University, AustLII helped reshape legal publishing in Australia and played a pivotal role in bringing other countries’ legal materials online. The episode continues with a conversation with Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay, the current CEO of CanLII, the Canadian Legal Information Institute, about the Canadian past, present and future of free and open access to law.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Daniel Therrien, the Privacy Commissioner in Canada, is in the courts battling Google over a right to de-index. He’s calling for order making after Facebook declined to abide by his recommendations. And he’s embarked on a dramatic re-interpretation of the law premised on incorporating new consent requirements into cross-border data transfers. David Fraser, one of Canada’s leading privacy experts, joins the podcast to provide an update on the recent Canadian privacy law developments and their implications.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC, Privacy Commissioners Say Canada Has a Lot of Catching Up To Do

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, PIPEDA and Your Business

CNBC, Everything You Need to Know About a New EU Data Law That Could Shake Up Big US Tech

CTV News

CBC News, Facebook Broke Privacy Laws, Watchdogs Report

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 11 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is LawBytes, a podcast with Michael Geist

Michael McEvoy:

Canada is far far behind I think many jurisdictions. Europe certainly the United States doesn’t have comprehensive privacy legislation by any means but through the Federal Trade Commission there is some element of regulation of privacy and obviously we’ve seen that with the latest investigation of Facebook. Canada has a lot of catching up to do in this regard both at a federal and provincial level.

Copyright threats and lawsuits against individuals have been around in Canada since 2004, when they were rejected by the federal court. Those threats receded for about a decade, but now they’re back. Copyright notices, litigation threats, settlement demands, and actual lawsuits have re-emerged at the very time that the music and movie industries are experiencing record music streaming revenues in Canada and massive popularity of online video services. James Plotkin, a lawyer with Caza Saikaley in Ottawa, joins the podcast this week to help sort through what the notices mean, the implications of the threats and lawsuits, and where Canadian law stands on the issue.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

House of Commons, November 27, 2018

CBC News, Infringement Notices

CTV News, Company Collects 1 Million IP Addresses of Canadians Suspected of Illegally Downloading

CBC, As it Happens

CBC, Mainstreet NS

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast, Episode10.mp3 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix Michael Geist:

This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist

David Lametti:

What began to happen in Canada, Mr. Speaker and I saw this myself a number of times in my teaching is that American rights holders through American law firms would often allege content infringement in Canada and send out a letter saying you’ve You’ve infringed copyright. We’re going to sue you please pay x thousands of dollars by clicking on this link and we will forget this. And sadly

Many Canadians follow telecommunications and broadcast issues at the CRTC from a distance – the cost of wireless services, the speed of their Internet access, the availability of broadcasting choice. Others engage more closely on issues such as net neutrality, Cancon regulation, or Netflix taxes. But there is one Canadian who doesn’t just follow the CRTC. She watches it through the use of access to information laws that present a perspective on the CRTC that would otherwise remain hidden from view. Monica Auer, the Executive Director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, joins the podcast this week to talk about insider access, slow reimbursement of costs for public interest groups, the number of CRTC meetings, and the Commission’s seeming indifference to commissioning original research. The interview is interspersed with comments from current CRTC Ian Scott taken from one of his first public speeches after being named chair in 2017.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

FRPC Policy 3.0 Conference (registration)

Credits:

CPAC, CRTC Chair Ian Scott Speaks About Internet Neutrality

FairPlay Canada Urges CRTC Action Against Online Theft

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast, Episode9.mp3 | Convert audio-to-text with the best AI technology by Sonix.ai Michael Geist:

This is LawBytes a podcast with Michael Geist.

Ian Scott:

This organization has a long tradition of being at the

Earlier this spring, I delivered a keynote address at the Australian Digital Alliance’s 2019 Copyright Forum. The ADA is a leading voice on copyright issues in Australia and its annual Copyright Forum brings together government, creators, education, libraries, and the broader public to explore copyright issues. Coming off a holiday weekend with many celebrating Easter or Passover, this week’s Lawbytes podcast takes a different approach with a Lawbytes lecture, an audio recording of the ADA keynote, which used real data to dispel the misleading claims about the impact of Canada’s copyright 2012 reforms.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

YouTube video version of the ADA keynote address

What if copyright law took authors rights seriously? Many groups claim to do so, but Professor Rebecca Giblin, one of the world’s leading experts on creator copyright, isn’t convinced. Professor Giblin argues that creators are often placed at the centre of the debate only to be largely ignored by other stakeholders. Professor Giblin joins this week’s Lawbytes podcast to talk about her Author’s Interest Project, the latest data, and why Canadian artist Bryan Adams may be on to something when it comes to his copyright reform proposal to benefit creators.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript downloadable here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

The Author’s Interest Project

Giblin, A new copyright bargain? Reclaiming lost culture and getting authors paid

Giblin, Fat horses and starving sparrows: on bullshit in copyright debates

Yuvaraj, Reversion laws: what’s happening elsewhere in the world?

Credits:

Wochitte Entertainment, Hachette Authors Urge Amazon Board To End Contract Dispute

CTV News, Bryan Adams speaks in Ottawa, urges change to copyright laws

TruTV, Adam Ruins Everything – How Mickey Mouse Destroyed the Public Domain

Reagan Library, President Reagan Signing the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 on October 31, 1988

CBC News, Libraries and E-Licensing

Transcript by Temi downloadable here.

For the better part of two decades, Canadian cultural groups have been pressing Canada’s telecom and broadcast regulator, the CRTC, to regulate and tax the Internet. The CRTC and successive governments consistently rejected the Internet regulation drumbeat, citing obvious differences with broadcast, competing public policy objectives such as affordable access, and the benefits of competition. That changed last year when the CRTC released Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada, in which it dramatically reversed its approach. Peter Menzies, a former CRTC commissioner and Vice-Chair of Telecommunications, joins this week’s LawBytes podcast to help sort through Cancon funding, Internet regulation, and the CRTC.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Regulate Everything: The CRTC Goes All In On Internet Taxation and Regulation

Harnessing Change: The Future of Programming Distribution in Canada

Credits:

CBC News, Tax on Netflix and Spotify proposed by CRTC

CBC Catherine Tait at Prime Time, @sdbcraig

CBC News, Ottawa’s fight with Netflix reignites age-old debate — what is Cancon and who should pay?

Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, October 30, 2018

Canadian Heritage, Minister Joly – Creative Canada Speech / Ministre Joly – Discours Canada créatif

House of Commons, December 12, 2017

Most treaties are negotiated behind closed doors with no text made available until after a deal has been reached. Yet there is a treaty with enormous implications for the Internet, copyright, and broadcasting that has been hidden in plain sight for the better part of two decades. This week, the World Intellectual Property Organization resumes discussions in Geneva on a proposed Broadcasting Treaty. To introduce WIPO, the proposed treaty, and its implications, Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International joins this week’s LawBytes podcast. Love warns that the treaty could extend the term of copyright for broadcast content, create a wedge between broadcasters and Internet streaming services, and even result in new restrictions on the use of streaming video.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

KEI Broadcasting Treaty archives

WIPO Broadcasting Treaty brief

Credits:

House of Commons, June 12, 2013

WIPO, Stevie Wonder Congratulates UN Delegates on Entry into Force of Marrakesh Treaty

WIPO, SCCR 37th Session

WIPO, Canada Joins Three Key WIPO Trademark Treaties

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has spent the past year reviewing the state of Canadian copyright law. The review, which is scheduled to result in a report with recommendations for potential reforms, featured hundreds of witnesses representing a wide range of views. To introduce some of the issues and provide some insight into how the review process functions, this week’s LawBytes podcast relies on the audio recording of my committee appearance in December 2018. It opens with my seven minute opening statement and continues with several exchanges with MPs on issues such as fair use, the USMCA, crown copyright, and anti-circumvention rules, which are often referred to as digital locks.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

The State of Canadian Copyright: My Copyright Review Appearance Before the Industry Committee

Credits:

Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, December 10, 2018

House of Commons, November 29, 2018

CBC Power and Politics: Copyright Modernization Act

CityNews Toronto: Bryan Adams Fights for Artists’ Copyright Laws

iFixit Video: DMCA on the Farm

Earlier this month, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains took his most significant policy step to date to put his stamp on the Canadian telecom sector by issuing a proposed policy direction to the CRTC based on competition, affordability, consumer interests, and innovation. To help sort through the policy direction, the state of the Canadian telecom market, the role of independent companies that rely on regulated wholesale access, and lingering frustration with the CRTC, this week’s LawBytes podcast features a conversation with Andy Kaplan-Myrth, Vice President of Regulatory and Carrier Affairs with TekSavvy, Canada’s largest independent telecom company.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Enough is Enough: Bains Proposes CRTC Policy Direction Grounded in Competition, Affordability, and Consumer Interests

Credits:

Government Orders CRTC To Reverse Bandwidth Decision, The Hill Watcher, 3 February 2011

New wireless spectrum auction announced, Global News, 12 January 2014

Why is Canada-based Ting is not available for cell phone users in Canada?, Open Media, 1 August 2013

Verizon opts out of Canada, Canoe, 20 March 2018

House of Commons Hansard, 26 February 2019

House of Commons Hansard, 7 December 2018

The first full length episode of the new LawBytes podcast features a conversation with UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who leads the high profile investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Denham, who previously served as Assistant Commissioner with the federal privacy office and as the British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioner, reflected on her years in Canada, particularly the Canadian Facebook investigation and concerns with the Google Buzz service. Denham emphasized the need for Canadian legislative reform in order to address today’s privacy challenges. Denham was recently appointed chair of the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, which she expects will increasingly focus on global privacy standards.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

12th Annual Deirdre Martin Lecture on Privacy

Credits:

CambridgeAnalytica: ‘Data crimes are real crimes’ Denham, EU Reporter, 4 June 2018

Facebook Privacy Concerns, CBC News: The National, 17 July 2009

Privacy commissioner urges legislative reform in the wake of Facebook data scandal, CBC News, 17 April 2018

News Update: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Unveils Google Buzz: Social Networking for Gmail, TradetheTrend, 9 February 2010

Cambridge Analytica: Whistleblower reveals data grab of 50 million Facebook profiles, Channel 4 News, 17 March 2018

In recent years the intersection between law, technology, and policy has exploded as digital policy has become a mainstream concern in Canada and around the world. I am very excited to announce the launch of LawBytes: A Podcast with Michael Geist. This podcast will explore digital policies in conversations with people studying the legal and policy challenges, setting the rules, or who are experts in the field. It will provide a Canadian perspective, but since the internet is global, examining international developments and Canada’s role in shaping global digital policy is be an important part of the story.

The preview episode is available now and first full episode – a conversation with UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham – will be available next week. All episodes will be available under a Creative Commons licence. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify as well as follow on Twitter at @LawBytesPod.

The Supreme Court of Canada recently brought a lengthy legal battle between Access Copyright and York University to an end, issuing a unanimous verdict written by retiring Justice Rosalie Abella that resoundingly rejected the copyright collective’s claims that its tariff is mandatory, finding that it had no standing to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement on behalf of its members, and concluding that a lower court fair dealing analysis that favoured Access Copyright was tainted. The decision removes any doubt that the Supreme Court remains strongly supportive of user’s rights and vindicates years of educational policy in shifting away from Access Copyright toward alternative means of ensuring compliance with copyright law.

Kim Nayyer is the Edward Cornell Law Librarian, Associate Dean for Library Services, and Professor of the Practice at Cornell Law School. She appeared before the Supreme Court in this case, representing the Canadian Association of Law Libraries as an intervener. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the case and its implications for the future of copyright, education, and collective rights management.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Access Copyright v. York University

Credits:

Supreme Court hearing, Access Copyright v. York University

Last week was a busy one in the wireless world in Canada. Just as people were debating the proposed Rogers – Shaw merger, the CRTC released its long awaited wireless decision involving the possibility of mandated MVNOs or mobile virtual network operators. While the CRTC notably concluded that Canadian wireless pricing is high relative to other countries and attributed that to insufficient competition, it ultimately was unwilling to fully embrace a broad-based mandated MVNO model. To help break down these recent developments, joining the Law Bytes podcast this week are Dwayne Winseck, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University and the director of the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project, and Ben Klass, a senior research associate at the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project and board member at the Internet Society Canada Chapter. They both join the podcast in a personal capacity representing only their own views.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

CRTC Review of Mobile Wireless Services, CRTC 2021-130

Credits:

CBC News, CRTC’s Opening for Smaller Wireless Companies Disappoints Advocates

Last week, the European Commission launched what promises to be a global, multi-year debate on the regulation of artificial intelligence. Several years in development, the proposed rules would ban some uses of AI, regulate others, and establish significant penalties for those that fail to abide by the rules. European leaders believe the initiative will place them at the forefront of AI, borrowing from the data protection framework of seeking to export EU solutions to the rest of the world. Céline Castets-Renard is a colleague at the University of Ottawa, where she holds the University Research Chair on Accountable Artificial Intelligence in a Global World. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the EU plans, their implications for Canadian AI policy, and the road ahead for the regulation of artificial intelligence.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation on a European approach for Artificial Intelligence

Credits:

EuroNews, ‘The higher the risk, the stricter the rule’: Brussels’ new draft rules on artificial intelligence

The public debate on Bill C-10 recently took a dramatic turn after the government unexpectedly removed legal safeguards designed to ensure the CRTC would not regulate user generated content. The resulting backlash has left political columnists comparing Canada to China in censoring the Internet, opposition MPs launching petitions with promises to fight back against the bill, and Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault struggling to coherently answer questions about his own bill.

Cara Zwibel is the Director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and one of Canada’s leading experts on freedom of expression. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk both about Bill C-10 and the free speech risks that may come from another bill that Guilbeault has been discussing that could include website blocking, a social media regulator, and mandated Internet takedowns.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CBC News, User-Generated Content Exemption Was ‘Not Necessary’: Guilbeault

This past week Bill C-10, Internet free speech, and the government’s digital policy agenda went mainstream as a lead topic in government, the media, and among many Canadians. This week’s Law Bytes podcast departs from the standard format as I explain why the bill has suddenly become a hot topic, how the government has been inconsistent and at times incoherent in its attempts to justify the bill, and why the concerns regarding freedom of speech and CRTC over-regulation are absolutely justified.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

House of Commons, May 5, 2021

House of Commons, November 18, 2020

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, April 23, 2021

CBC News, User-Generated Content Exemption Was ‘Not Necessary’: Guilbeault

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, May 6, 2021

CTV News, Question Period, May 9, 2021

The global struggle for access to COVID-19 vaccines took a dramatic turn recently as the Biden Administration in the United States unexpectedly reversed its longstanding opposition to a patent waiver designed to facilitate access to vaccines in the developing world. The shift seemingly caught many by surprise. Pharmaceutical companies were quick to voice opposition and U.S. allies found themselves being asked to take positions. That was certainly the case in Canada, where the Canadian government has steadfastly refused to support the waiver with repeated claims that it had yet to make a decision.

Ellen ‘t Hoen, is a lawyer and public health advocate with over 30 years of experience working on pharmaceutical and intellectual property policies. From 1999 until 2009 she was the director of policy for Médecins sans Frontières’ Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. In 2009 she joined UNITAID in Geneva to set up the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). Ellen is currently the director of Medicines Law & Policy and a researcher at the University Medical Centre Groningen. She joins the Lawbytes podcast this week to talk about the fight for a patent waiver and the implications of the Biden decision for global access to COVID vaccines.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

CNBC, Biden Administration Supports Waiver of Patent Protections for Covid Vaccines

Weeks into a high profile debate over Bill C-10, the issue of discoverability of Canadian content has emerged as a policy tug of war between supporters that want the CRTC to intervene by mandating the discoverability of Canadian content on sites such as Youtube and Tiktok and critics that argue the approach would raise significant freedom of expression and net neutrality concerns. But what exactly is “discoverability” and how would it impact both users and the thousands of Canadian creators that have already found success on digital platforms?

Fenwick McKelvey is a communications professor at Concordia University who has written more about the discoverability and algorithmic media than anyone in Canada. He has regularly participated in CRTC hearings and was the co-author of a leading study on the issue commissioned by Canadian Heritage. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about discoverability, his frustrations with its implementation in Bill C-10, and the potential consequences for Canadian creators.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, May 14, 2021

Communications issues have been in the political spotlight in recent weeks with the controversial CRTC decision to reverse a pricing decision on wholesale broadband that swiftly led to calls for the resignation of Commission Chair Ian Scott as well as the ongoing battle over Bill C-10, which envisions granting extensive new powers to the CRTC.

Konrad von Finckenstein is a former chair of the CRTC, having led the Commission during a similarly contentious time during debates over net neutrality. He has since been outspoken on communications policy issues, including arguing that Bill C-10 should be scrapped and re-written. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the CRTC, the recent decisions, and what he thinks a better approach to Internet and broadcast regulation would look like.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Question Period, House of Commons, June 4, 2021

Earlier this year, Senator Claude Carignan introduced Bill S-225, a bill that purports to address concerns about the viability of the Canadian media sector by amending the Copyright Act. The Senate has been studying the bill in recent weeks with Senator Paula Simons serving as the bill critic and one of the leads on the issue. Senator Simons was a longtime journalist before being appointed to the Senate and while an ardent supporter of local journalism, she has been critical of the proposed legislation. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the state of journalism in Canada, why she doesn’t think the social media companies “stole” stories from the media, and what Canada should be doing to encourage innovation in the media sector.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bill S-225

Senator Simons Speech on Bill S-225, May 25, 2021

Geist, The Copyright Bill That Does Nothing: Senate Bill Proposes Copyright Reform to Support Media Organizations

Credits:

TRCM: Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan appears at committee for Bill S-225, June 2, 2021

Earlier this month, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released a scathing report on the RCMP’s use of facial recognition technology, particularly its work with Clearview AI. The report was particularly damaging as the Commissioner found that the RCMP wasn’t truthful when it said it didn’t work with Clearview AI and then gave inaccurate information on the number of uses when it was revealed that it did. In fact, even after these findings, the RCMP still rejected the Privacy Commissioner’s findings that it violated the Privacy Act.

Lex Gill is a Montreal-based lawyer where she is an affiliate at the Citizen Lab and teaches at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. She has also worked at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. Lex joins the podcast to discuss the Commissioner’s findings and to explain why this is best viewed as part of a long cycle of surveillance that has often targeted social movements or vulnerable populations.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

OPC, Special report to Parliament on the OPC’s investigation into the RCMP’s use of Clearview AI and draft joint guidance for law enforcement agencies considering the use of facial recognition technology

Credits:

CityNews, RCMP Violated Privacy Act by Using Facial Recognition: Privacy Commissioner

The Liberal government strategy to push through Bill C-10 bore fruit last week as the controversial Broadcasting Act reform bill, received House of Commons approval at 1:30 am on Tuesday morning. Bill C-10 proceeded to receive first reading in the Senate later that same day and after a series of Senate maneuvers, received second reading from Senator Dennis Dawson the following day. That sparked Senate debate in which everyone seemed to agree that the bill requires significant study and should not be rubber-stamped. Speeches are likely to continue on this week after which the bill will be sent to committee. Given that the committee does not meet in the summer, an election call in the fall would kill Bill C-10.

Peter Menzies is a former Vice-Chair of the CRTC and one of the most outspoken experts on Bill C-10. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to reflect on the last two months of the Bill C-10 debate, discuss the limits of CRTC regulation, and explore what comes next.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Peter Menzies, Bill C-10: Control-Freak Ottawa Confronts the Future. And the Future is Losing

Credits:

House of Commons, June 21, 2021

Several years ago, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada filed a reference with the federal court in a case that was billed as settling the “right to be forgotten” privacy issue. That may have overstated matters, but the case did address a far more basic question on whether the privacy law applies to Google’s search engine service when it indexes webpages and presents search results in response to searches of an individual’s name. Earlier this month, the federal court released its decision, concluding that it does.

Mark Phillips is a Montreal-based lawyer practicing primarily in the areas of privacy, access to information, civil litigation, and administrative law in both Quebec and Ontario. His client – whose identity remains confidential under order of the court – filed the complaint that ultimately led to federal court decision. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the case, where the right to be forgotten stands under Canadian law, and what might come next.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Federal Court of Canada Reference decision

Credits:

Your Morning, Canadians Could Soon Have the Right to be Forgotten

Bill S-225, Senator Claude Carignan’s copyright bill, would create a new compensation scheme for media organizations by establishing a new collective rights system for the use of news articles on digital platforms. It may not become law, but it has sparked considerable discussion within the Senate on the issue of media and Internet platforms. In fact, while the digital policy world was focused on Bill C-10, last month the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications held hearings on the bill with a wide range of witnesses that included News Media Canada, Facebook and Google. I was invited to appear in their last hearing of the session alongside Jamie Irving from News Media Canada and Kevin Chan from Facebook. This week’s Law Bytes podcast episode goes inside the virtual committee hearing room with my opening statement and exchanges with several Senators.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bill S-225 (An Act to amend the Copyright Act (remuneration for journalistic works)

Credits:

MP Joyce Murray, Web Giants: Are They Too Big to Regulate? With Minister Steven Guilbeault

The CRTC’s wireless decision earlier this year dubbed the “MVN-no” decision given its very limited opening to mobile virtual network operators in Canada sparked widespread frustration with the Commission. That decision included one less discussed element, however, namely the expectation that the major wireless carriers would introduce low-cost plans to ensure connectivity for low-income Canadians. Those plans were recently introduced, but John Lawford, the Executive Director and General Counsel of PIAC, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, wasn’t impressed. He wrote to the CRTC asking the Commission to take action over plans that aren’t even offered under the main carrier brands. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about that issue, the ongoing concerns with the wireless affordability in Canada, and the deepening frustration with the CRTC.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

PIAC Letter to the CRTC Re: Low Cost Wireless Plans

Credits:

CBC News, CRTC Examines Wireless Costs, Options

Privacy reform in Canada has lagged at the federal level with the efforts to update PIPEDA seemingly going nowhere, but multiple provinces have moved ahead with amending their own laws. Quebec leads the way as late last month it quietly passed Bill 64, a major privacy reform package that reflects – and even goes beyond – many emerging international privacy law standards. Chantal Bernier, the former interim privacy commissioner of Canada, now leads the Dentons law firm’s Canadian Privacy and Cybersecurity practice group. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about Bill 64, including its origins, key provisions, and implications for privacy law in Canada.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Bill 64 on Modernizing Quebec privacy law – Why It Matters and How to Prepare for It

Credits:

Canadian Press, Bains Explains Update to Canada’s Digital Privacy Law

Vaccine passports or certificates launched in Ontario last week, a development welcomed by some and strongly opposed by others. The launch raises a myriad of legal, ethical, privacy, and policy issues as jurisdictions around the world grapple with the continued global pandemic and the unusual requirements of demonstrating vaccination in order to enter some public or private spaces.

Professor Colleen Flood, a colleague at the University of Ottawa, has been writing and thinking about these issues for many months. Later today, she will be part of a panel discussion that explores the policy challenges hosted by the University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, and the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. She joins the Law Bytes podcast with an advance preview as we discuss the legal balancing act, models from around the world, and the concerns that governments should be thinking about in this next stage of dealing with COVID-19.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Vaccine Passports/Certificates: Law, Ethics & Policy

Wilson & Flood, Implementing Digital Passports for SARS-CoV-2 Immunization in Canada

Flood, Krishnamurthy, Wilson, Please Show Your Vaccination Certificate

Credits:

CityNews, Day One of Ontario’s Vaccine Passport

It is election day in Canada following a late summer campaign in which the focus was largely anything but digital issues: COVID, climate change, Afghanistan, and affordability all dominated the daily talking points. The digital policy issues that grabbed attention throughout the spring – Bill C-10, online harms, wireless pricing – were largely absent from the discussion and in some cases even from party platforms. Laura Tribe, the executive director of OpenMedia, joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss digital policies and the 2021 election campaign. Our conversation walks through a wide range of issues, including the surprising omission of wireless pricing from the Liberal platform, the future of Bill C-10, and the failure of privacy reform to garner much political traction.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Credits:

Global News, Canada Election: How are the Parties Planning to Tackle Cellphone Affordability

The role of the public and the public interest has factored prominently into many of the Law Bytes podcast conversations. For the 100th episode, Osgoode Hall Law School Professor David Vaver, widely viewed as Canada’s leading IP expert, joins the podcast. The recipient of the Order of Canada, Professor Vaver provided the scholarly grounding for the emergence of user rights in copyright in Canada and around the world. In this episode, he gives a masterclass on the history of copyright, the emergence of user rights, Supreme Court copyright jurisprudence, and potential future copyright reforms.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Late last month – just weeks prior the national election call – Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault released plans for online harms legislation with a process that was billed as a consultation, but that is probably better characterized as an advisory notice, since there are few questions, options or apparent interest in hearing what Canadians think of the plans. Those plans include the creation of a bureaucratic super-structure that featuring a new Digital Safety Commission, a digital tribunal to rule on content removal, and a social media regulation advisory board. In terms of illegal content, the proposed legislation envisions a myriad of takedown requirements, content filtering, complaints mechanisms, and even website blocking.

Cynthia Khoo is an Associate at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law in Washington. She is also the author of a ground-breaking Canadian study for LEAF, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, on holding digital platforms accountable for technology technology-facilitated gender-based violence. She joins the Law Bytes podcast in a personal capacity to discuss the government’s consultation and her recent report.

The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Show Notes:

Canadian Heritage, Technical Paper on Online Harms

Credits:

Canada 2020, Democracy in the Digital Age: Addressing Online Harms