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No flying vegetables from me, just some facts: In 2001, Canada accounted for 10% of the global new medicines discovered, despite representing only 1.8% of the world pharmaceutical market. And this is WITH price controls in place.

The operative words here are "preparing to introduce". So far it is a declaration of intent by the minister, no such legislation has been introduced yet (as you can find out on the Canadian Parliament site.) Don't panic just yet.

Meanwhile, you can check the existing legislation on "Hate propaganda".
There is a good article explaining the issues, an overview of the applicable law, the relevant statutes and regulations of the criminal code and a recent amendment.

Also see the Internet Content-Related Liability Study on the applicability of the existing legislation to the internet.

The operative words here are "preparing to introduce". So far it is a declaration of intent by the minister, no such legislation has been introduced yet (as you can find out on the Canadian Parliament site.) Don't panic just yet.

Meanwhile, you can check the existing legislation on "Hate propaganda".
There is a good article explaining the issues, an overview of the applicable law, the relevant statutes and regulations of the criminal code and a recent amendment.

Also see the Internet Content-Related Liability Study on the applicability of the existing legislation to the internet.

"So you're saying all genetically modified life is extremely vulnerable to disease?"

Nope, but as another poster suggested, it is the monoculture that you get as a result of using GM plants that is the problem. In normal situations natural selection can be relied upon to at least produce some survivors from a devastating event such as a disease outbreak. When every single tree in a forest is genetically identical, then any disease that strikes will strike them all, and natural selection cannot come to your aid.

It boils down to class, and class warfare. It always has and always will. Marx was wrong about prescriptions, but his analysis was spot on 150 years ago, and it's still dead accurate.

Some things are different: events are certainly moving on a deeper and larger scale than the capitalists could possibly muster in 1870, but the structure has remained the same: there are a very few people on top and a lot of people on the bottom. The globalisation of wealth has made entire nations part of the "top" and entire continents part of the "bottom" - and you know who's getting fucked.

"Conservatives" (especially those of the more recent "neocon" variety, who are little more than penny ante fascists) are people who have internalised the false consciousness machine of contemporary capitalist culture to such a degree that they cheerfully support the plutocrats who enslave them. In fact, their culturally instilled cranio-rectal inversion is so complete, they don't see themselves as being willing participants in their own self enslavement - they see themselves as supporters of "freedom and liberty".

Meanwhile, the powers that be are re-aligning the economies into Orwellian superstates. The Europeans are doing it through an opt-in confederacy (EU), the Americans are doing it with their typically murderously belligerent policy of co-option, destruction and subordination (from Wounded Knee to Baghdad) and forming Oceania by way of NAFTA. East Asia is forming more slowly, as is typical of the Chinese Empire.

The great battle will be between a collapsing Oceania and a rising EastAsia. Eurasia will sit on the sidelines and watch the two destroy each other, and then move in to scoop up what's left.

This isn't tinfoil hat theory. this is stuff that has been documented over and over and over.

here

Here

and HERE.

Now, if you have any sense: ORGANISE A COHERENT RESISTANCE AND GET A PLACE AT THE TABLE OF OCEANIA. Prevent the disaster. If the neocon agenda goes on by its own logic, there will be an eventual war between EastAsia and Oceania. It will be fought through terror proxies first, then localised wars and rebeliions at the periphery. The results will be millions dead so the rich bastards running the American State can stay rich and the powerful shitbags running the Chinese Gov stay in power.

WAKE UP PEOPLE. Or don't: just pretend it isn't happening and surrender your children to be cannon fodder in some far off oil rich country for the sake of Exxon, Halliburton, and Walmart.

RS

He's Scottish, and worked on his inventions all over the place. Claiming the telephone was invented by an American is quite a stretch.

"I am of the opinion that our proposals/recommendations in the Interim Report do not regulate technology.

In addition, I disagree that ratification of the WIPO treaty regulates technology."

Take a look at the the user feed back during the Copyright Reform Process. Over 700 submissions all sorted by date and submitter.

Among the contributions who asked for specific legislation to ban circumvention technology were, the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association (CIPRA), which on page page 4 requested

"With regard to technological protection measures, it is the view of CIRPA that ... it is vital that new legislation be put in place to address the ... problems these devices cause ... copyright owners. In particular the effective defining and legislation of tamper proof rights management systems..."

AOL-TW Inc also called for DMCA type regulation of technology,

(b) that legal protection against the circumvention of technological protection measures be added to the law, whether contained within the Copyright Act or linked to it; (c) that such protection extend to the manufacture of and trafficking in circumvention devices and services, as well as the act of circumvention;

FWIW: The September 4th 2001 submission from "The Edifying Fellowship of Ook" is hilarious. I couldn't get past the first page with that funky old English font.

O, may this humble document meet the favour of the Departments and the Sub-Departments and the Molluffs and the Tree-Sloths even unto the fourteenth generation. ...

"I am of the opinion that our proposals/recommendations in the Interim Report do not regulate technology.

In addition, I disagree that ratification of the WIPO treaty regulates technology."

Take a look at the the user feed back during the Copyright Reform Process. Over 700 submissions all sorted by date and submitter.

Among the contributions who asked for specific legislation to ban circumvention technology were, the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association (CIPRA), which on page page 4 requested

"With regard to technological protection measures, it is the view of CIRPA that ... it is vital that new legislation be put in place to address the ... problems these devices cause ... copyright owners. In particular the effective defining and legislation of tamper proof rights management systems..."

AOL-TW Inc also called for DMCA type regulation of technology,

(b) that legal protection against the circumvention of technological protection measures be added to the law, whether contained within the Copyright Act or linked to it; (c) that such protection extend to the manufacture of and trafficking in circumvention devices and services, as well as the act of circumvention;

FWIW: The September 4th 2001 submission from "The Edifying Fellowship of Ook" is hilarious. I couldn't get past the first page with that funky old English font.

O, may this humble document meet the favour of the Departments and the Sub-Departments and the Molluffs and the Tree-Sloths even unto the fourteenth generation. ...

"I am of the opinion that our proposals/recommendations in the Interim Report do not regulate technology.

In addition, I disagree that ratification of the WIPO treaty regulates technology."

Take a look at the the user feed back during the Copyright Reform Process. Over 700 submissions all sorted by date and submitter.

Among the contributions who asked for specific legislation to ban circumvention technology were, the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association (CIPRA), which on page page 4 requested

"With regard to technological protection measures, it is the view of CIRPA that ... it is vital that new legislation be put in place to address the ... problems these devices cause ... copyright owners. In particular the effective defining and legislation of tamper proof rights management systems..."

AOL-TW Inc also called for DMCA type regulation of technology,

(b) that legal protection against the circumvention of technological protection measures be added to the law, whether contained within the Copyright Act or linked to it; (c) that such protection extend to the manufacture of and trafficking in circumvention devices and services, as well as the act of circumvention;

FWIW: The September 4th 2001 submission from "The Edifying Fellowship of Ook" is hilarious. I couldn't get past the first page with that funky old English font.

O, may this humble document meet the favour of the Departments and the Sub-Departments and the Molluffs and the Tree-Sloths even unto the fourteenth generation. ...

"I am of the opinion that our proposals/recommendations in the Interim Report do not regulate technology.

In addition, I disagree that ratification of the WIPO treaty regulates technology."

Take a look at the the user feed back during the Copyright Reform Process. Over 700 submissions all sorted by date and submitter.

Among the contributions who asked for specific legislation to ban circumvention technology were, the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association (CIPRA), which on page page 4 requested

"With regard to technological protection measures, it is the view of CIRPA that ... it is vital that new legislation be put in place to address the ... problems these devices cause ... copyright owners. In particular the effective defining and legislation of tamper proof rights management systems..."

AOL-TW Inc also called for DMCA type regulation of technology,

(b) that legal protection against the circumvention of technological protection measures be added to the law, whether contained within the Copyright Act or linked to it; (c) that such protection extend to the manufacture of and trafficking in circumvention devices and services, as well as the act of circumvention;

FWIW: The September 4th 2001 submission from "The Edifying Fellowship of Ook" is hilarious. I couldn't get past the first page with that funky old English font.

O, may this humble document meet the favour of the Departments and the Sub-Departments and the Molluffs and the Tree-Sloths even unto the fourteenth generation. ...

Hmmm... Technically they're not kayaks, but it appears native Pacific Northwesterners and New Zealanders beat you to it with their war canoes.

Patent1

Canadian Patent Search

So sorry, Canada has software patents...

Patent1

Canadian Patent Search

So sorry, Canada has software patents...

An Anti-Spam Action Plan for Canada

Socialist Country

Yes you're a troll, but Canada is a parliamentary democracy.

As for taxes, Canada's progressive tax system makes it a good place start a business

I will suggest that all and sundry might enjoy "Whispers in the Air", a radio documentary about Marconi that was produced literally at the foot of the cliff in St Johns where Marconi made his historic broadcast.

RealAudio links are to be found on this page.

Chris Brookes is a wonderful award winning producer, and has also worked on documentaries about Vikings and about Reginald Fessenden, who all Canadians know beat Marconi to the punch any how.

"A Canadian, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was the first person to prove that voices and music could be heard over the air without wires. Yet some books ignore him, others mistakenly call him an American, and one Canadian encyclopedia cites his mother as the principal founder of Empire Day but overlooks her eldest son's accomplishments. Marconi, on the other hand, is given credit for radio even though his theory on sound waves was wrong and even though he was still sending only Morse code signals when Fessenden made his first "broadcast.""

...plankton, which are the largest consumers of CO2 gas in the atmosphere...

Excuse me, but how can ocean plankton be the largest consumers of CO2 in the atmosphere ?

With the exception of those animicules that die, dropping a calcium carbonate shell to the ocean floor what happens to plankton blooms? Don't they get eaten, metabolized, and turned back into CO2? Or, if they don't get eaten, don't they poison the water, rot anaerbically, producing CO2 and CH4?

With the exception of animicules that leave a calcium carbonate shell, can ocean animicules be regarded as long term carbon sinks?

Temperature is absolutely not the limiting factor on the growth of plankton. Nutrients are the limiting factor. The areas which are most productive of bio-mass, the rich fishing grounds, are places where cold currents, full of nutrients, meet warm currents, full of oxygen, like the Grand Banks.

In Canada, yes, as per Corporations Canada web site [emphasis mine]:

"A proposed name that looks, sounds or suggests similar ideas as an existing business name or trade mark is not eligible for incorporation under the CBCA if it is likely to cause confusion with the other business name or trade mark. The Act gives the Director, CBCA the responsibility to decide whether your proposed name is likely to cause confusion."

In other words, a corporation's name may not be valid if the authorities believe the phonetic resemblance causes confusion. In this case, it's debatable whether a .com domain name should be treated the same way as a corporation name, and whether the phonetic resemblance is a problem. But yes, it would be worth the court's time to look at it.

Can you, or anyone else, recall any type of medication that really works that wasn't protected with a patent for an ungodly length of time and being sold at an extortionist rate to the wealthy?

I apologize for responding to your intended rhetoric question, but, yes, yes I can. The drug is called Insulin, and it's used in the treatment of diabetes. Dr. Frederick Banting sold the patent on the idea to the University of Toronto for exactly $1 (Canadian funds, no less), such that it could be produced cheaply for all those with diabetes.

Source: Government of Canada Digital Collections Archive

Reading the list of responses (I don't see it offhand, but someone please post the link), its interesting to see the perspectives of many of the artists / producers (who've never seen a cent from that blank media levy).

Bin goin' on since 1857!!

It has been trialled enough times around the world with no critical mass of market share that like the video-telephone it will not successfull ever.

A large scale roll out will more likely than not generate unacceptable (according to existing law, of unlicensed and in this case unintended radiators) intereference with various licensed spectrum users including government, military, and amateur voice and data communications.

You're thinking of old decisions from lower courts. The final ruling on this is from last year from the Supreme Court of Canada -- which ruled that it was illegal.

Under international copyright law, a publisher is not required to make content available for sale in a country for that content to be protected by copyright law. This is why fansubs (while generally winked at by anime publishers) are illegal. You won't find Apple providing Quicktime downloads of fansubs any time soon.

As a matter of fact, this particular point was *exactly* what drove the introduction of international copyright law and Mark Twain's involvement in its introduction -- before this, someone publishing a book in the United States might have it immediately reproduced en masse in Europe. To keep a book from being pirated, you had to have the resources and be willing to gamble that it would do well, and publish (depending upon law, individually applying for copyright) in all countries simultaneously.

Hopefully, someone with half a brain cell will apply this. Of course, with the same token, why has this rule not been applied to a number of software patents then? (I'm sure people can list off a whole slew of them, if you ask). Canada has a similar ruling.

So US & UK now have software patents.. What a joke. At least Canada does not have them yet.

A patent is granted only for the physical embodiment of an idea--e.g., the description of a plausible door lock--or for a process that produces something saleable or tangible. You cannot patent a scientific principle, an abstract theorem, an idea, a method of doing business, a computer program, or a medical treatment.

Also, you cannot patent a living organism in Canada (unlike the US & UK).

The Annapolis Tidal Power station at the mouth of the Annapolis river in Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy has been running (and providing power to Nova Scotia Power's grid) since the mid '80s. (this PDF of a magazine article provides more info.)

While considered a "pilot" operation, it does generate 20 MW of power, supplying the electrical needs for 4500 customers.

Actually, check this. "Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues"
The list of acronyms is very telling.

LIST OF ACRONYMS

DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act
ICT Information and Communications Technologies
IHAC Information Highway Advisory Council
IP Intellectual Property
ISP Internet Service Provider
NAFTA North-American Free Trade Agreement
SDMI Secure Digital Music Initiative
TRIPs Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
WCT WIPO Copyright Treaty
WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization
WPPT WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty

This section is of particular significance

The WCT and WPPT were concluded shortly after the federal government had published its response to the IHAC recommendations. However, IHAC's mandate was extended to allow it to monitor the government's progress in implementing its recommendations. In IHAC's report card published in 1997, (http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ih01650e.html">Prep aring Canada for a Digital World: Final Report of the Information Highway Advisory Council, 1997, p. 20,), it recommended that "[t]he Government of Canada should move quickly to respond to the World Intellectual Property Organization's 1996 Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties".

Actually, some scientists of the Manhattan project did indeed get themselves killed from assemblies of fissionable material going slightly supercritical. Scientists through the ages have poisoned, electrocuted, drowned, shot, burned, disemboweled and blown up themselves.

Considering Blaster only affects 2000/XP/2003 machines, that means that the roughly 50 computers running those took 8 hours to clean? Something seems wrong here.

There were also submissions that characterized all activities on the Internet that involve unauthorized copying or communications as "piracy" rather than "infringement." There is a distinction between piracy, which involves commercial-scale operations and a profit motive, and infringement, which can be on an individual, even personal scale, without necessarily any commercial goal.

And it's more evident with the recent news that we keep hearing how Canada is moving forward while the States are slipping into regress by way of draconian laws and regulations a la DMCA, Super-DMCA, Media Consolidation, etc.

Don't fool yourself. A made-in-Canada DMCA is forthcoming.

Cell phones use licensed spectrum, controlled by companies.

Spectrum is controlled and licensed by government agencies, in the the US, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau of the FCC, Canada, Industry Canada, and the UK, the Radiocommunications Agency of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The licensing comes from a tradition of making spectrum organized to prevent interference.

Anyone who tries to use WiFi in a densely populated area, especially over a large area (e.g. linking various sites in the same city) can tell you, intereference can be a problem within the license-free (aka license-exempt) frequency ranges .

Grumble, here is a graphical chart (in PDF) from Industry Canada.

My point, was so people can see the many users of various frequency allocations, and to compare the bandwidth available.

I believe a single broadcast TV channel is about 4 MHz wide, whereas the entire brocast AM allocation is 1.5 MHz wide.

1. A list of nanotechnology companies in general

2. In Canada, alot is being spent on R&D for nanotechnology: Nanotechnology R&D Initiatives in Canada

3. And they are crazy about it in Asia (many PDF reports)

Since the topic of SPAM was recently at hand, I wonder long it will be before we start getting: "***enlarge your penis*** Rapid PENIS ENLARGEMENT through the use of amazing NANOTECHNOLOGY advances "***enlarge your penis*** "

Here

If a disperse population is the problem, why is broadband to common in Canada, which has 3 people per sq Km, as compared to the US's 30?

The answer to this lies in the fact that Americans don't want to use the internet, for whatever reasons. Therefore it is not as easily available.

While the provincial Professional Engineering acts do not restrict the use of "Engineering", Canadian copyright law does.

"CCPE maintains official marks on the terms engineer, engineering, professional engineer,...

Microsoft had an agreement with Industry Canada's
Computers for Schools program. It was also secret. I got a copy under Canada's Access to Information law, though no-one was very cooperative.

There was nothing particularly disturbing about the agreement, although there was one funny part:

5. VIRUSES --- you acknowledge that the SOFTWARE may contain viruses and you accept any risks associated with using the SOFTWARE without recourse to Microsoft, Microsoft Canada Co. or the Government of Canada.

I think M$ is just plain paranoid.

If I recall correctly from my IT Law course some years back (taught by lawyers, but IANAL) this practice you refer to is known as copyright marking. Though the Universal Copyright Convention requires this, the Berne Copyright Convention does not. Thus countries who are members of the UCC but not the BCC may require marking, though my understanding is that the majority of countries do not require this.

Now, being educated in Canada, my course dealt with Canadian Law -- where marking is advised but not required. (See Guide to Copyrights from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.) I do not recall what the requirement is for US Law, but don't think the US requires marking either.

So regardless of whether or not there is a copyright symbol, copyright protection may still be there.

Nothing in Canada's trade mark law prohibit you to trademark a mythological name.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has a nice document resuming what can and cannot be trademarked.

Having had to deal with this from an almost identically named company in America, the quoted phrases don't seem nearly as sneaky and dirty as some I've seen, but it's good to see a precedent.

DRoEurope is run by the same folks who brought you DRoAmerica and DRoCanada ... these guys, who seem to be affiliated with Enom somehow (and who can't build a proper pending page, it seems).

DRoC was earlier slapped for sending mail using a logo remarkably similar to the Canadian governments logo.

Obviously these guys have no scruples. On the plus side, you can probably safely ignore anything you receive from the Domain Registry of Africa, Domain Registry of Asia and the Domain Registry of Oceania.

>Why does everybody want to vote on-line?

This is simple. Jean Chretien is straining to leave a "legacy" behind in this country after 3 terms of heavy-handed rule. He doesn't like what his opposition paints as his legacy -- A liar on the GST "The GST is history!", a thug with his shawinigan handshake, a bumbling moron infront of cameras, a person who can't even keep himself safe from break-ins no matter how much security he can pay for, a man who puts the lives of the Canadian military in jeopardy without them even being on a mission, a man who can't handle being wrong, a man who doesn't believe in your chartered right to free speech, a man who wrongfully invests your money, a man who supports things by doing nothing, such as the CD-Levy that assumes all Canadians are criminals, and the anti-piracy laws that leave at least 3 million Canadians with the inability to be multicultural in their television watching.

The rubber suit is wearing thin, finally.

Copyright laws are not about phyiscal properity, they are about the control of distribution of their "intellectual" material in a fixed medium such as words on a page or a magnetic cassette recording of a musical performance.

The book or DVD disc is almost an accidential artifact that is no ways embodies copyright control.

With a book, the first sale doctrine, allows you to own the physical artifact of the paper and binding, and allows you to resell that single copy of it. It does not give you permission to alter the contents, or produce a reproduction.

Maybe I am wrong here, but I take it CleanFlicks produces a new DVD of the modified content, which in my lay understanding is an unauthorized reproduction of the copyrighted contents. It is not a backup copy because the contents are modified by CleanFlicks, so the exemptions for archival purposes are not relevant.

The reproduced contents are altered which makes it a derived work (reproduce, adapt and publicly present a work by cinematograph, that uses a substantial portion (i.e. the vast majority) of the original creator's content. This should fall under the copyright owner/creator's copyright control.

Lastly it violates the copyright creator's moral right (only creators not owners have moral right, at least in some countries).

Well this is all I can find for OEONE, Don't know if it means anything, all this patent stuff is just way to vague sounding to me.

canada has a DMCA also

No, it doesn't.

The Canadian Copyright Board is currently discussing amending copyright law to this effect, but at this stage it's unclear whether such amendments will go as far as the DMCA.

The response they got to their RFC is neatly summarized here.

No. Although the Canadian government has been investigating the possibility of a DMCA equivalent.

Some links to info on Canadian crypto laws:

Electronic Frontier Canada's Crypto Page

A Notice to Exporters, part of the Canadian Export and Import Permits Act: "Export Controls on Cryptographic Goods"

A speech by John Manley from 1998, then the Minister of Industry: Canada's Cryptography Policy

The Canadian government's cryptography website: Cryptography/Cryptographie

I have somewhat of a stake in Canada's crypto laws, as I've been writting and maintaining a strong cryptography extension for PHP which uses the Crypto++ library. Of course, my code itself contains absolutely no cryptographic code, it just links to the aforementioned library, but still...

J

Some links to info on Canadian crypto laws:

Electronic Frontier Canada's Crypto Page

A Notice to Exporters, part of the Canadian Export and Import Permits Act: "Export Controls on Cryptographic Goods"

A speech by John Manley from 1998, then the Minister of Industry: Canada's Cryptography Policy

The Canadian government's cryptography website: Cryptography/Cryptographie

I have somewhat of a stake in Canada's crypto laws, as I've been writting and maintaining a strong cryptography extension for PHP which uses the Crypto++ library. Of course, my code itself contains absolutely no cryptographic code, it just links to the aforementioned library, but still...

J

Does anyone know what the Canadian stance is on the DeCSS issue?

As of right now, there is nothing "official" about it.

The Canadian Copyright board is considering legislation similar to the DMCA, and (for the past year, give or take) has issued a request for public comments, and held public hearings about what should or shouldn't be included in such legislation.

The RFC elicted over 600 comments, all of which were published at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00007e.html. A (very informative) summary of these responses is available at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00842e.html (Interesting to note that our government considers copyright infringement and "piracy" to be two different things.)

I attented the last day of hearings, held in Edmonton, and I must say that things looked hopeful. There was one guy, who owned a publishing house, who was pro-playback protection, and everyone else (approx 50 or so, including a police officer, teachers, librarians, and even the president of a crypto company) was opposed.

Does anyone know what the Canadian stance is on the DeCSS issue?

As of right now, there is nothing "official" about it.

The Canadian Copyright board is considering legislation similar to the DMCA, and (for the past year, give or take) has issued a request for public comments, and held public hearings about what should or shouldn't be included in such legislation.

The RFC elicted over 600 comments, all of which were published at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00007e.html. A (very informative) summary of these responses is available at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00842e.html (Interesting to note that our government considers copyright infringement and "piracy" to be two different things.)

I attented the last day of hearings, held in Edmonton, and I must say that things looked hopeful. There was one guy, who owned a publishing house, who was pro-playback protection, and everyone else (approx 50 or so, including a police officer, teachers, librarians, and even the president of a crypto company) was opposed.

That's what you think.