The War Between Old Media Empires and the Internet

It is now clear that the true enemy of traditional media, still unbloodied, is the Internet itself. The remarkable ability of digital technology to reduce the transaction costs of information exchanges of all kinds has destroyed the business models, if not the businesses, on which content providers have operated successfully since at least the 18th century. That’s when the first copyright law was passed in England.

The focus on “media” in the very name of the industry belies its reliance on the limited life of physical copies as the key control mechanism. But as physical copies are replaced by faster, better, and cheaper digital alternatives, control becomes more illusory. The entrenched providers are growing desperate.

- Larry Downes, in his recent, and somewhat lengthy, column Leahy’s Protect IP Act: Why Internet content wars will never end Read the rest of this entry »

Chinese Prisoners Forced to Game

If there is such thing as modernization of forced labour, this would be it. Prisoners in a labour camp in north-eastern China have allegedly been forced to play MMORPG’s, like World of Warcraft, to build up online credit that prison guards would then trade for real money. Netting the prison guards approximately $800 to $900 a day, it is said to be even more lucrative than the manual labour prisoners are traditionally forced to do. Read the rest of this entry »

Potential Effect of Digital Locks on Music Industry Clouds

Since Bill C-32, an Act to amend the Copyright Act, died with the election, the new Tory majority government had promised in their campaign to reintroduce and pass the same bill, albeit with a new number, in the next Parliament. It is unclear what, if any, changes will be made to C-32 upon reintroduction. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s Bid for Musical Cloud Supremacy

Amazon and Google seemed to have the upper hand in the cloud music service, launching their service months and weeks ago, respectively. But in the latest move in the escalating music cloud battle, it seems like Apple may having the last say. Three of the big four music labels, Sony Music, EMI and Warner Music, have agreed to stream music through Apple’s iCloud service, a feat neither Amazon nor Google were able to achieve prior to their own launches. Read the rest of this entry »

Canlii Seeks Intervenor Status in SOCAN v. Bell et al.

Canlii, along with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, filed a joint motion on Monday with the Supreme Court of Canada, seeking intervenor status in a copyright case, SOCAN v. Bell et al., to be heard in December 2011. The Court will be deciding the meaning of the word “research” and the issue of whether an offer made to a consumer to “preview” music constitutes fair dealing for the purpose of research within the meaning of s.29 of the Copyright Act. Read the rest of this entry »

Into Stormy Clouds

With its many virtues, more and more organizations, both public and private, are heading into the clouds, and not the precipitous, atmospheric variety. Cloud computing provides new ways of doing business for the likes of Cisco, Xerox, Amazon (Amazon Cloud Player) and especially Google (like Google Docs and most recently Google Music Beta), and enables new products like Dropbox, Flickr and WordPress.  Small businesses have also cropped up using the cloud, including Canada’s Asigra, Freshbooks and Boardsuite. Even government agencies are getting on board, as nearly half of American federal agencies plan on being in the cloud within 12 months, according to an InformationWeek Analytics survey. Read the rest of this entry »

Spreed and Globe & Mail App Dispute

The recent app dispute between Toronto-based Spreed Inc. and the Globe and Mail raises interesting questions over the complications with outsourcing digital content and its medium. When the original Globe and Mail iPhone app was first released two years ago, it was developed and built by Spreed Inc., a Toronto-based software company.  App users were  confused when, following the latest software update, the formally Globe and Mail app was displaying Free Press News content. Read the rest of this entry »

Google Music Launches without Licenses

Google announced today that they are proceeding to launch their oft-rumoured digital music service, Music Beta, even though they have yet to secure license agreements with the record labels. Google’s free streaming service utilizes “cloud” storage by allowing users to upload their music to Google’s servers, which can then be streamed from the Web or Internet-connected mobile running on Google’s Android operating system. Read the rest of this entry »

Potential Fines for Massive Data Breaches

Following Sony’s recent, and nigh global, data security issues and Canada’s privacy watchdog’s call to increase penalties on corporations if they do not protect personal information of their customers, Industry Minister Tony Clement has responded with a “Maybe”.  The minister made a statement to Postmedia News on Friday that ”I have not closed the door to it, but there would have to be additional consultations on that issue.”  Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has been vocal about the need for the federal government to update this country’s private-sector privacy law to include fines, given the “alarming trend toward ever-bigger” data breaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Class Action Against Sony for Data Breach

A class action has been filed in Ontario on behalf of approximately one million Canadian PlayStation and Qriocity users against Sony Corporation.  The proposed lawsuit comes on the heels of what has become a string of data breaches and crumbling trust in the multinational corporation’s data security systems.  Sony Corp’s announced in April that hackers had managed to break into databases containing personal information associated with nearly 100 million worldwide user accounts on the company’s popular PlayStation Network. Read the rest of this entry »