CIPPIC News

CIPPIC Releases Report Documenting Problems with Canada's Proposed Online News Act.

- 2023-03-16 -

CIPPIC today released a report highlighting several additional problems with the federal government’s proposed Online News Act, which seeks to extract money from large online companies like Google and Facebook to help fund Canadian journalism. The new report, entitled Bad News, highlights how key provisions of the Online News Act may be vague to the point of being unconstitutional, while excluding many of the most dynamic sectors of the evolving Canadian news media landscape from financial support. The report also details how the Online News Act undermines longstanding exceptions to the Copyright Act that are meant to protect the public interest, while also distorting Canadian digital policy away from regulating the toxic, ad-supported business models of major Silicon Valley companies. The reliance the Online News Act places on extracting profits from big tech companies to fund Canadian journalism may well explain the weakness of Bill C-27, the federal government’s much-delayed privacy reform bill, which fails to adequately regulate targeted digital advertising. CIPPIC’s report is authored by student intern Lexie Misterski, who is a second-year law student at the University of Ottawa, and its director, Vivek Krishnamurthy. The full text of our report can be downloaded by clicking here.

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CIPPIC Files Factum in Appeal of Voltage Default Judgement Motion

- 2022-10-30 -

CIPPIC has filed its Responding Memorandum of Fact and Law with the Federal Court of Appeal in Voltage v Doe. The appeal involves CIPPIC’s successful intervention in Voltage Pictures’ motion for default judgement in one of its numerous mass copyright infringement proceedings in the Federal Court of Canada. Voltage had sought judgement against 30 anonymous internet subscribers whom Voltage had alleged it had caught sharing one of its movies through BitTorrent and who had failed to file a Statement of Defense.

CIPPIC’s argument comes down to three core positions:

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Bill C-11 Threatens Free Expression in Canada and Beyond

- 2022-10-24 -

CIPPIC Director Vivek Krishnamurthy highlighted the risks that Bill C-11 poses to the right to free expression in Canada and beyond in his testimony before the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications on October 18, 2022. By extending Canada’s incredibly broad definition of “broadcasting” and “programs” to practically all audiovisual content online, subject only to the weak and confusing exceptions for “social media” provided by s. 4, Bill C-11 provides an ideal template for authoritarian governments to emulate in regulating social media content for their own ends. Bill C-11’s provisions in this regard are especially problematic since they are tied to measures that seek to promote what the government defines as “Canadian content” on social media services. The danger of such a regime in the online sphere is clear to see as increasingly authoritarian countries like India seek to strip members of minority communities of their citizenship rights. Krishnamurthy’s Senate testimony is available to view on the Parliamentary website.

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Come work with us! CIPPIC is hiring a new Staff Counsel!

- 2022-10-24 -

CIPPIC is looking for a bold and dynamic technology lawyer to join our team as a Staff Counsel! Working closely with CIPPIC's staff and students, our new Staff Counsel will advance CIPPIC's mission of promoting the public interest in technology law and policy debates in Canada and beyond. This is a unique opportunity for an early career lawyer with an interest in law and technology or in law teaching to join the CIPPIC team and make a real difference on the development of law and policy in areas from copyright to privacy to telecommunications law.

The Staff Counsel's work includes:
- representing CIPPIC and external clients before courts and administrative tribunals;
- participating in legislative, administrative, and multi-stakeholder processes relevant to CIPPIC's mandate;
- engaging with the public on these issues by speaking to the media and developing educational materials; and
- working closely with CIPPIC's law student interns on all of the above and provide them with an outstanding clinical legal educational experience.

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Professor Jane Bailey Appears for CIPPIC in Voyereurism Case, R v Downes

- 2022-10-13 -

Professor Jane Bailey offered submissions on behalf of CIPPIC at the hearing of R v Downes, an important voyeurism case. This issue before the Court involved the interpretation of the "place" provisions of the Criminal Code's prohibitions against voyeurism. These provisions protect Canadians against surreptitious observation and recording when we have a reasonable expectation of privacy and are in “a place in which a person can reasonably be expected to be nude...”.

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cippic C-18 is the worst possible solution to the real challenge of funding Canadian journalism in the digital age, and it deserves to be scrapped.
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