Canadian TSA's Non-Apology Apology To 82-Year-Old Woman

from the that's-not-an-apology dept

We just had a story about how the Canadian version of the TSA, the CATSA, had treated an 82-year-old woman to ridiculous security procedures -- berating her for not originally telling them about the gel in her prosthetic breast (there due to her mastectomy because of breast cancer) and then arguing with her because she physically could not lift her arms in the new naked scanners. Reader Joe points out that the CATSA eventually did offer an apology... of sorts. It's not a real apology, in that they don't say they're sorry for what they did. They're just sorry the lady got upset:

"We apologized for not having met her expectations and expressed our regrets for the unpleasant experience, and that doesn't change, regardless of the results of the review."

So they're not sorry for the actions. They're sorry she expected more from them. How nice. Separately, the article points out that the CATSA will not reveal publicly what their investigation into the matter finds, meaning it doesn't really matter what the investigation finds. They also won't reveal the CCTV tapes -- which could make sense on privacy grounds, but also sounds like they perhaps don't want people seeing what actually happened.

Filed Under: canada, catsa, searches

82-Year-Old Cancer Survivor Demands Apology From Airport Security Over Screening

from the threat-assessment dept

This isn't a TSA story, since it takes place up in Canada, but it involves the Canadian equivalent, who apparently had a bit of trouble dealing with an 82-year-old woman who had a (gel-filled) prosthetic breast to replace the one she lost in a mastectomy due to breast cancer. By failing to alert them to this "gel" on her body, she was later accused of lying to officials. She was also put through one of the lovely new full body scanner machines, in which passengers are required to lift their hands above their head. The problem? This woman is no longer able to do so. Rather than understanding this, security officials told her she had to. She then tried to lift her left arm with her right arm, and again security told her she was not allowed to do that. At this point she broke down and started crying. Eventually, security did let her get on the plane, but you have to ask what exactly they accomplished here in embarrassing this woman and making her cry.

Filed Under: airport search, canada, privacy, security

Major Record Labels Agree To Pay $45 Million For Copyright Infringement In Canada

from the and-they-got-off-easy dept

We've noted the irony of the fact that the largest copyright system supporters are frequently found to infringe whenever possible. One of the most amazing examples of this concerned the major record labels, who for years were directly infringing on the copyrights of various artists, by putting their songs on compilations and mixes without first getting permission as is required by the law. Instead, the labels would put those artists on a "pending list," but they rarely seemed to get around to taking them off that "pending list" and paying them. After years of trying to get the labels to pay up, a lawsuit was finally filed, where the artists pointed out that the labels could be on the hook for $6 billion. Kind of amusing to see the ridiculously large infringement penalties thrown back at the labels. After some negotiation, it appears that the labels have agreed to settle the case for $45 million and they're also promising to make sure that artists on the pending list will get paid in a reasonable amount of time. Now, can we finally stop pretending that the major record labels ever have the best interests of the artists in mind?

Filed Under: canada, copyright

Canadian Music Collection Society Demanding Payment For 30 Second Song Previews

from the the-very-definition-of-promotion dept

Remember last year, when ASCAP and BMI suddenly started claiming that the 30-second previews in iTunes and other online music stores should count as public performances for which they should be compensated? Yeah, that didn't get very far, as the courts shut that down quickly. Colin Ross alerts us to the news that up in Canada they're going through something of a similar debate with the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada demanding royalties for the 30-second previews. Back in 2007, the Copyright Board in Canada told the group to get lost but it's kept on appealing, and now the Supreme Court is going to hear the case. Hopefully, they took it to shut down this nonsense forever. 30-second previews are the very definition of a promotional good. Demanding payment by claiming they're a public performance goes beyond greed to an insane level of entitlement.

Filed Under: canada, music, previews, royalties

Canadian Telco Claims Netflix & Google TV Should Be Regulated As Broadcasters

from the ah,-protectionism dept

A few years back, you may recall, we covered how some content creators in Canada were looking to expand broadcast regulations to the internet. If you're not aware, Canadian law requires that broadcasters fund and promote a certain amount of Canadian-based content. The reason for it on television is so that Canadian television isn't dominated by American programming -- and the idea here was that there was a similar "threat" online. Of course, unlike television, there is no limit to how much content is available, and artificially trying to force ISPs to fund and promote Canadian content just doesn't make any sense.

However, now, it appears that at least one company, Shaw -- who is both a broadcaster and an internet provider in Canada -- is trying to bring this issue back in a way, claiming that Netflix and Google TV should be subject to similar regulations. Of course, both of these aren't really broadcasters. They're service providers. But that issue seems lost on Shaw. It's especially bizarre in the case of Google, which isn't offering up its own content at all, but merely an interface to access other content online. If anything, this shows the rather obvious and hamfisted manner by which Shaw seeks to burden new technologies that might compete with it for attention.

Filed Under: broadcasting, canada, regulations
Companies: google, netflix, shaw

Let's Play A Game: Anarchist Or Photo Op?

from the take-your-pic dept

Last week, there were student protests in the UK, concerning massively increased fees, and apparently on the fringes of the protests there was some violence, which of course the press picked up on, because "if it bleeds, it leads." Or, in this case, if it "kicks in a glass window, it leads." Apparently a whole bunch of newspapers all carried the same photo on their front covers. I've posted all nine such covers after the jump, but here are a couple just to give you the idea: However, as some have noted, what may be more interesting is that if you look at a wider lens version of a similar image, you see that the guy kicking in the glass appears to be surrounded by a ton of photographers. In fact, the whole thing almost looks like a setup, with every single newspaper cropping out the photographers: It looks like the wide angle shot was taken either seconds before, or seconds after the shot used by all the papers, but it's pretty close. Of course, with so many photographers, it does seem a bit odd that the newspapers all seemed to use a single photograph for their covers. What happened to the images from the others? Anyway, see the nine covers after the jump.

Filed Under: canada, cropping, journalism, photographs

Canada Continues To Grandstand Over Craigslist Adult Services

from the grandstanding dept

Last month, we noted that some Canadian politicians were jumping on the censor Craigslist bandwagon, though some pointed out in our comments that the politicians in question actually had little influence. However, it looks like those who actually are in power are jumping onto the same grandstanding train. Canada's Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, has now demanded that Craigslist censor its adult services section -- and he does so with statements that are blatantly intellectually dishonest:

"With respect to newspapers, there are editors, I am sure, who take precautions to make sure they’re not getting into the business of child exploitation or human trafficking and so on" in their classified ads, Mr. Nicholson said after the Conservative caucus meeting on Wednesday. "It seems to me with Craigslist there's no regulation at all as to what goes on."

Except, most of that is inaccurate or misleading. Newspapers work on an entirely different scale and different model than Craigslist, which just acts more as a platform. Second, there is quite a bit of "regulation," it's just that this doesn't sound good, so Nicholson apparently decides to ignore it. Nicholson also claims he's going to introduce new legislation "that would create two new offences under the Criminal Code to close loopholes in Canada's laws against child pornography." If he's complaining about Craigslist and talking about loopholes, that sounds like that new legislation may create secondary liability for platform providers. Hopefully someone can explain to Nicholson the ridiculous unintended consequences of such secondary liability, which would create massive liability for an awful lot of the internet.

Filed Under: canada, granstanding, rob nicholson
Companies: craigslist

Blogger Sued, In Part, For Linking To Material Claimed To Be Defamatory

from the link-it-up dept

We've pointed in the past to some rather ridiculous situations in Canada concerning libel law. One key case involved a guy named Wayne Crookes, who not only sued major internet sites like Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and MySpace for hosting content he believed to be defamatory towards himself, but he also sued Jon Newton of the site P2Pnet.net for merely linking to the content Crookes believed to be defamatory. A court in Canada eventually ruled that merely linking to potentially defamatory material is not defamation, and an appeals court agreed. Last I heard, the case had moved up to the Canadian Supreme Court. That case is still ongoing, but it looks like there may be a similar case brewing as well.

Reader JC points us to a short blogpost about another Canadian, named Richard Warman (interestingly, both Warman and Crookes have ties to the Canadian Green Party, though, I'm going to say that's likely a coincidence), who apparently is suing some bloggers for (in part) linking to material he finds defamatory. Unfortunately, in all the sites talking about this, no one seems to be willing to state the full story of the lawsuit, or show the full filing. Instead, they just show parts of the filing. But, at least in that part, it does appear that one of the complaints is that the blog in question linked to a site that Warman believed to be defamatory. It's unclear what else is involved in the lawsuit (and if anyone has the details, please pass them along in the comments). However, just the snippet provided is troubling enough.

Even if the content in question was totally defamatory, it certainly raises some pretty serious questions about whether merely linking to content itself can or should be seen as defamatory as well. As noted in the Newton/Crookes case, so far, Canadian courts have been rejecting such claims, and hopefully that holds up with the Supreme Court ruling. But in the meantime, it certainly sounds like others are still making similar claims, which certainly feel like efforts to stifle freedom of expression.

Filed Under: canada, free speech, libel, linking, richard warman

Broken Monitor Still Under Warranty, But Samsung Won't Fix It, Because You Don't Live In Canada

from the blame-canada dept

A guy who bought a Samsung monitor at a Sam's Club in St. Louis, Missouri, had it stop working after a couple years. He found the model number, and saw that it was supposed to have a three year warranty, so he called Samsung. Samsung is refusing to fix it, claiming that the monitor is Canadian and the warranty only works in Canada, unless he has his receipt from two years ago as proof of purchase. It's not clear why Sam's Club was selling Canadian monitors, but should it really matter?

Filed Under: canada, customer service, monitors, repairs
Companies: samsung

University Told It Can't Sanction Students For Their Facebook Comments

from the free-speech-and-all... dept

Last year we had a discussion about some students at the University of Calgary, who were put on probation for making some comments about a professor on Facebook. Apparently, the students went to court to protest this move and said that such a move violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. It seems a court agreed. Michael Geist points us to the news that the court has said that sanctioning the students based on Facebook comments is a violation of the Charter. The University had argued that the comments were defamation (when they looked more like a general opinion) and that it was not subject to the Charter. The court absolutely disagreed. Nice to see free speech being respected.

Filed Under: canada, comments, free speech, sanctions, university, university of calgary
Companies: university of calgary