Law Bytes

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 the podcast to help sort through Cancon funding, Internet regulation, and the CRTC.

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. Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International joins the podcast to talk about the draft Broadcasting Treaty currently being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization that 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 House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has spent the past year reviewing the state of Canadian copyright law. To introduce some of the issues and provide some insight into how the review process functions, this episode 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.

Andy Kaplan-Myrth, Vice President of Regulatory and Carrier Affairs with TekSavvy, Canada’s largest independent telecom company joins the podcast to help sort through the government’s proposed telecom 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.

A conversation with UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, the world's leading privacy regulator, who leads the high profile investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

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.