TorrentFreak

A group of 26 major record labels have sued the owner of Canadian BitTorrent site isoHunt for allegedly facilitating copyright infringement on a massive scale. Through this lawsuit the labels hope to shut down the isoHunt website while receiving over 4 million dollars in punitive damages to compensate for their claimed losses.

Canadian Internet users can sleep well tonight. A proposal of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) put a cap on user’s bandwidth and charge extra for additional usage, have been tossed out. “The CRTC should be under no illusion — the Prime Minister and minister of Industry will reverse this decision unless the CRTC [...]

Canada is slowly moving back into the dark ages. Where most other countries are doing all they can to ensure that consumers have high speed connections and sufficient bandwidth, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) suggests a model where users available bandwidth is capped. This if of course a disastrous proposal that will hinder [...]

In 2005 there was C-60, in 2008 it was C-61, and now in 2010 it’s C-32. As we reported a month ago, a new Bill was about to be rammed through Canada’s Parliament, and on Wednesday it was announced. It is, like its two predecessors, mostly a collection of stricter enforcement rules with an occasional benefit to consumers thrown in, almost as an afterthought.

Following pressure from the US Government, Canada is preparing to ram through a revamped copyright bill that will have disastrous consequences for consumers. The Government is hereby ignoring the public consultation held last year, where many Canadians spoke out against harsher copyright legislation.

Last summer, TorrentFreak encouraged its Canadian readers to have their voice heard in the country’s public consultations on copyright reform. The response to this call for action was overwhelming, and as a result a pro-copyright lawyer is now claiming that we “systematically abused” Canadian democracy.

The Canadian government is conducting ongoing public consultations on copyright reform. In a guest post for TorrentFreak Prof. Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa explains why Canadian Internet users should speak out on copyright today.