Canadian copyright law promises to dominate discussion in Ottawa over the coming weeks as hearings on Bill C-32, the controversial copyright bill, are set to begin within a few days.
If the past six months are any indication, members of Parliament will be asked to sort through confusing rhetoric in order to understand the implications of the proposed changes. Separating fact from fiction will not be easy, but getting straight answers to the following questions will be crucial:
1.Will Bill C-32 give education institutions the right to engage in massive uncompensated copying?
No. The inclusion of education as a fair dealing category will not mean that any educational copying will be free. It will only mean that educational copying will be eligible for analysis under a six-part test developed by the Supreme Court of Canada to determine whether the copying qualifies as fair dealing. The changes in Bill C-32 are more modest than often claimed as they merely fill some gaps in the existing list of fair dealing categories.
2.Will Bill C-32 give consumers the right to make backup copies and view or read their purchases on the device of their choice?
Sometimes. The bill includes new consumer exceptions that open the door to legally recording television shows (time shifting), moving content between devices (format shifting) and making personal backup copies. However, the bill also says that if the content, such as DVDs and e-books, contains a digital lock, consumers can???t circumvent the lock in order to exercise their rights. Since digital locks are commonly found on these products, Canadians may not actually get to exercise their new ???rights.???
3.Aren???t the digital lock rules in Bill C-32 required by international law?
No. The government has made implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization???s Internet treaties a key priority and those treaties include a requirement to provide legal protection for digital locks. However, the treaties feature considerable flexibility that permits countries to allow users to circumvent digital locks for legal purposes.
The Bill C-32 model is one of the most restrictive approaches in the world ??? even the U.S. permits circumvention of DVD locks for some non-commercial purposes ??? and could be amended to match the more flexible implementations found in countries such as New Zealand and Switzerland.
4.Does Bill C-32 require Internet providers to help combat piracy?
Yes. The bill codifies a ???notice-and-notice??? system that gives rights holders the power to notify ISPs of alleged infringements and requires the ISPs to forward the notifications to the targeted subscribers. ISPs bear the costs of this system, which has been used informally in Canada for more than five years. Studies have shown that a majority of users that receive notifications cease placing the infringing file back on file sharing networks.
5.Does Bill C-32 create a ???licence to steal??? by reducing statutory damages awards?
No. Canada is one of the few countries in the world with statutory damages for copyright, which can lead to liability of up to $20,000 per infringement. The lofty awards were designed for commercial infringement, as no one envisioned multi-million dollar lawsuits against individuals. Since that has become a reality in the U.S., Bill C-32 establishes a $5,000 cap for non-commercial infringement, which still represents a very significant penalty for such activities.
6.Will Bill C-32???s user-generated content provision deprive creators of commercial opportunities?
No. The provision, which legalizes the creation of certain forms of user-generated content, is limited to non-commercial activities, requires attribution, and does not apply if there is a substantial adverse effect, financial or otherwise, on the exploitation or potential exploitation of the original work.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
Results of a Field Poll that measured voter awareness and sentiment toward four of 10 propositions slated to appear on the state’s November general election ballot were released Friday.
Voters are opposing Proposition 23, the initiative to suspend AB 32, California’s greenhouse gas reduction law, and Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative, and supporting Propositions 25 and 18, the Field Poll said.
Proposition 25 would require a majority vote to approve the state budget while retaining a two-thirds vote to increase taxes, while Proposition 18 is an $11.1 billion bond measure to fund water supply and protection facilities.
Voter awareness of the measures varied widely, according to the survey. More than three in four likely voters (77 percent) report some familiarity with Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative. Most voters (56 percent) also had heard of Proposition 25, which would change vote requirements needed to pass the state budget.
Fewer potential voters (39 percent) had heard of Proposition 23, which would suspend AB 32, or water bond measure Proposition 18 (24 percent).
According to the Field Poll:
The poll has a sampling error rate of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points for likely voters and a higher margin for subgroups. Pollsters surveyed 1,005 people by telephone between June 22 and July 6.
Just over 3,000 homeowners in the Albany, N.Y., region have received a bank notice since mid-February telling them they are at risk of foreclosure, according to a report.
The data is based on notices mailed under a new law requiring lenders to give homeowners 90-day notice of a possible foreclosure.
The information was compiled by the New York State Banking Department and a group of housing assistance agencies based in Albany called the HomeSave Coalition.
HomeSave is sponsoring a free legal clinic June 9 to help homeowners avoid being scammed by companies promising to help those facing foreclosure.
The clinic will be held at 5:30 p.m. at Stuyvesant Plaza on Western Avenue. To attend or for more information, contact the HomeSave Coalition at 518-434-1730.
A total of 3,009 home owners in Albany, Columbia, Fulton, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie and Washington counties received the notices since Feb. 13.
That represents just under 1 percent of all owner-occupied homes in the 10 counties.
The highest per-capita ratio was in rural Montgomery County, where 1.27 percent of owner-occupied homes received a pre-foreclosure notice. The lowest ratio was in Saratoga County, 0.79 percent.
The per-capita figures for the Albany region are in line with data compiled by RealtyTrac, an online seller of distressed properties that reports on the number of foreclosure notices filed in county clerk’s offices nationwide.
Unlike RealtyTrac, however, the new report tracks the number of homeowners at risk of a foreclosure action, not those that have already received a foreclosure filing. The foreclosure process takes months to complete and involves several procedural steps in court.
Under the new state law, which took effect in February, lenders must sent notices to homeowners at least 90 days before starting a foreclosure action.
Lenders must also file certain information with the state Banking Department about the pre-foreclosure notices. The Banking Department, in turn, shares that with nonprofit groups that help people in danger of losing their home.
The HomeSave Coalition is responsible for outreach in the 10-county region surrounding Albany.
The top three mortgage service companies that sent the notices were Wells Fargo, HSBC and Citi Mortgage/ABN Amro Mortgage.
Treasury prices fell for a second day on Thursday as stocks soared and the euro firmed.
What prices are doing: The benchmark 10-year note fell 2/32 to 101-4/32, pushing the yield up to 3.37%, from 3.19% on Wednesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The 30-year bond lost 4/32 to 102-29/32 and yielding 4.3%. The 5-year note edged lower by 1/32 to 99-21/32, yielding 2.21%, while the 2-year note fell less than 1/32 to 99-24/32, yielding 0.89%.
What’s moving the market: Treasury prices were pressured Thursday as demand for riskier investments increased and stocks recovered losses from the previous session.
Treasurys are viewed as low-risk investments since they are backed by the U.S. government; therefore, they are particularly attractive during times of economic uncertainty.
Confidence in the euro zone was also boosted on Thursday and the euro strengthened versus the dollar after China’s government called Wednesday’s reports that it may reduce its holdings of euros "groundless."
"There’s been some significant pickup in risk appetite today," said Kim Rupert, a fixed-income analyst at Action Economics. "Some of the fears that dogged the market late yesterday have been assuaged a bit, and that has revived confidence in the market payday advance lenders."
In the last of the week’s auctions, the Treasury Department auctioned $31 billion in 7-year notes on Thursday, receiving bids totaling $89 billion.
Economy: Economic reports from the government sent mixed signals Thursday.
The Commerce Department said the economy didn’t grow as much as originally reported, with the gross domestic product rising at an annual rate of 3% in the first quarter, compared with the 3.2% rate the government had previously announced.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor said initial jobless claims fell to 460,000 last week from 474,000 in the previous week, beating the drop to 455,000 expected by economists.
Outlook: While Treasurys may pare losses as investors prepare for a long holiday weekend, trading is likely to remain volatile, she said.
"I think we’re going to stay choppy," Rupert said. "Markets have been very vulnerable to news headlines, and I think we’ll remain susceptible to this kind of trading pattern for some time."
European finance chiefs sought to bolster international confidence in Greece’s ability to cut its budget deficit by endorsing the country’s austerity plan and promising to ensure the government delivers on it.
“The European members of the G-7 will make sure it is managed,” French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told reporters on Feb. 6 after meeting counterparts and central bankers from the Group of Seven in Iqaluit, Canada. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the ECB is “confident” Greece will cut its deficit below the limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product in 2012 from 12.7 percent.
The struggles of the Greek government to convince investors it can reduce the largest budget gap in the European Union without outside assistance forced their way on to the agenda of the G-7 talks after the MSCI World Index of stocks fell to its lowest in four months on concern of a default.
“I just want to underscore they made it clear to us, they the European authorities, that they will manage this with great care,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in Iqaluit. “The European authorities gave us a very comprehensive review of the program now in place to address the challenges faced by the Greek economy.”
Greek bonds have tumbled in the past two months, pushing the yield on the country’s 10-year debt above 7 percent, the highest since 1999, the year the euro began trading. The premium investors charge to hold Greek 10-year bonds over the benchmark German bund has widened to 356 basis points, about 10 times what it was two years ago, and credit-default swaps on Greek debt rose to a record on Feb. 5.
Foreign-Exchange Markets
“No measure of official reassurance would be enough unless the nations in question retain credibility in financial markets, which remains to be seen,” Geoffrey Yu, a currency strategist at UBS AG in London, said in a note to clients. “We expect foreign-exchange markets to continue trading on a risk-averse tone.”
Borrowing costs have also jumped for Portugal and Spain, raising concern among policy makers that Greece’s woes will be shared elsewhere in Europe and overseas as governments try to rein in the record budget deficits they ran up fighting the worst global recession since World War II.
“This is a crisis that has been on the horizon for quite a while,” Harvard University Professor Niall Ferguson told Bloomberg Television, adding that Belgium and Italy are also at risk. “The contagion is going to spread.”
‘Intense Concern’
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in Iqaluit that policy makers outside Europe “have the impression that Europeans will solve this problem and that they’re aware of the problem.” Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the size of Greece’s economy means “in global terms it’s not of intense concern.”
Schaeuble said Greece still has to “pay a price” for running up the deficit and said the euro remains “stable.”
“Euro-area members of the G-7 gave an update on the efforts and commitments by the Greece government to ensure fiscal sustainability and economic reform,” Trichet said. “We said that the euro area would continue to monitor closely the implementation of this stability program.”
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has already pledged to step up budget cuts if needed and EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who also attended the G-7 meeting, said last month that leaders have no “plan B” to help Greece.
Painful Measures
Most Greeks object to increases in the retirement age and fuel taxes even as a majority say painful measures are needed to reduce the budget gap, according to a Kappa Research poll for To Vima newspaper, published yesterday.
Harvard’s Ferguson said Greece’s economy will suffer as it tries to restore fiscal order with the resulting increase in unemployment triggering public strikes. Teachers, hospital workers and tax collectors already have called a 24-hour strike for Feb. 10 and private-sector workers will follow two weeks later.
“It’s going to be messy,” said Ferguson, who predicted Germany and France will provide financial aid if needed. “Suddenly the markets woke up and realized these weren’t credible fiscal policies.”
Motor Trend magazine named the Ford Fusion mid-sized sedan as its 2010 Car of the Year on Tuesday. The award includes both the gas-only and hybrid versions of the Fusion.
This year’s Car of the Year was selected from among a field of 22 different cars all of which were newly introduced or, like the Fusion, substantially redesigned for the 2010 model year.
The Fusion was first introduced in 2006 but has been substantially upgraded and redesigned for the 2010 model year.
"It’s a credit to the [Ford] team to deliver a car in the hottest selling segment in the market and to make it absolutely competitive with the benchmarks," said Motor Trend editor-in-chief Angus McKenzie at an award presentation ceremony.
The benchmark cars in the mid-sized segment are generally considered to be the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, which have been the two top-selling cars in America for years.
McKenzie praised the Fusion for the excellence of all versions of the car including the 4-cylinder, V6 and hybrid models.
"Another thing that impressed us was the attention to detail," McKenzie said cash til payday.
While the 2010 Fusion shares much of its engineering with the previous version, the car looked and felt like a completely new car, McKenzie said.
Motor Trend, one of the most influential automotive enthusiast magazines in the United States, also gives out SUV of the Year and Truck of the Year awards. The SUV of the Year was announced earlier with the award going to the 2010 Subaru Outback. The Truck of the Year will be announced in December.
Vehicles were judged on six different criteria: design, engineering, efficiency, safety, value and how well the vehicle fulfills its intended function.
The cars were put through track tests by Motor Trends editors. Then cars that were not eliminated in the track testing process were put through additional road tests.
Derrick Kuzak, Ford Motor Co. group vice president for product development credited the Fusion with "getting Ford back into the car market" in 2006 after the carmaker had become competitive only in large trucks and SUVs.
Banks in France, including non-French ones, will no longer be allowed to offer guaranteed bonuses to traders and other staff under new rules announced Nov. 5. The only exception is for signing bonuses for new employees, and they are limited to a maximum of one year.
Among other stipulations in the government decree, which takes effect immediately: Bonus payouts will be spread over at least three years, and will be clawed back either in part or entirely if the transactions on which the bonus was calculated turn out to be less profitable than thought at the time of the award. For large bonuses, at least 60% of the total must be deferred. And, for all variable bonuses, at least half of the total must be in stock rather than cash.
The French government says it’s pioneering a tougher system of bonus awards that reflect the spirit and letter of a deal struck at the recent G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. Finance Minister Christine Lagarde says she expects other countries to follow suit with their own set of similarly restrictive rules.
The French regulations were put together with input from the national bankers’ federation, which has been regularly cajoled over the past year by President Nicolas Sarkozy to end what he’s called "scandalous" bonus payments.
The new rules were announced jointly by Lagarde and Baudoin Prot, the head of the federation and chief executive of BNP Paribas, the top French bank. Prot didn’t mention Sarkozy’s browbeating, but said that France is acting as a result of lessons learned from the financial crisis.
Privately, some top French bankers are concerned that they’ll lose some of their best staff and have difficulty recruiting talented international executives under the new restrictions.
Prot said he was "very concerned" that other countries implement similar rules, singling out the U.S. and Britain. "It’s an important test of credibility" for the G20 that others follow suit and create a level playing field, he said.
How likely is that? Banks everywhere are under fire over bonuses, and regulators are stepping up pressure. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently described huge payouts to executives at companies that were only a few months ago on the brink of failure as "deeply offensive" to the public.
In Britain, Adair Turner, the top regulator, is pushing banks to use profits from the recent market bounce to boost reserves rather than make big, and politically unpalatable, payouts to staff. In Germany, the government is also pushing for restraint.
But market pressure is market pressure, and not every country is as willing or as quick to regulate as France.
The new rules probably won’t reduce the public controversy over bonuses in France, either. That’s because, starting with this year’s payouts, banks have a new obligation to disclose the total size of the pot, the number of beneficiaries, and the division between fixed and variable payments. In other words, plenty of fodder for the critics.
The real estate investment manager who led the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest pension fund, into a money-losing land venture has resigned as an adviser to the fund, according to news reports.
Victor MacFarlane, chairman and chief executive of MacFarlane Partners, “has terminated” his relationship with the $200 billion pension fund, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
A spokeswoman for MacFarlane said his resignation was voluntary and that he would continue advising Calpers through the end of the year, the Journal reported.
MacFarlane’s resignation was first reported by Reit Zone Publications.
Representatives for MacFarlane Partners and Calpers could not be reached to confirm the reports on Saturday afternoon.
MacFarlane Partners Inc is a real estate investment management firm in San Francisco that manages $10 billion in assets for some of the world’s largest pension plans and institutions, according to its website.
The firm came under fire for a $970 million investment it managed for Calpers into LandSource Communities Development, the Journal said.
LandSource filed for bankruptcy in 2008, about 18 months after Calpers had bought into the 15,000-acre (6100-hectare) tract outside Los Angeles, Calpers said in a 2008 press release.
Calpers had invested in the development through its investment partner, MW Housing Partners, which was jointly managed by MacFarlane Housing and Weyerhaeuser Realty Investors, the release said.
MW Housing held a 68 percent interest in LandSource, whose holdings were hit hard by the California real estate bust, it said.
The separation comes as Calpers examines its relationships with private equity firm Apollo Global Management and other outside money managers.
Calpers said earlier this month that its probe centers on around $50 million in payments that outside managers made over a five-year period to ARVCO Financial Ventures LLC, a firm headed by former Calpers board member Al Villalobos, to win the pension fund’s business.
Firms ranging from airlines to agribusiness would be exempt from new rules on compulsory clearing of derivatives transactions under a bill in Congress aimed at tightening oversight of the financial system.
The draft bill from Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, was being circulated among lawmakers on Monday amid concern that an effort to regulate the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market could hurt nonfinancial firms that use it.
The $450-trillion OTC derivatives market, used to hedge against risk and speculate on prices, is widely blamed for amplifying the 2008-2009 financial crisis and authorities worldwide are debating approaches to regulating it.
Nonfinancial firms ranging from rural electric cooperatives to airlines have voiced concerns about capital and liquidity constraints they might face if they too had to front collateral to meet margin requirements involved in centralized clearing.
Frank’s bill exempts derivative swaps from new rules requiring centralized clearing, meant to bring more visibility to the market, if “one of the counterparties to the swap is not a swap dealer or major market participant.” Exempted transactions would have to be reported to authorities, under the bill.
In late August, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler, whose agency will play a key role in policing OTC derivatives, proposed more OTC derivatives face mandatory clearing, including non-financial firms or so-called end users.
Frank said last week his committee will deal in mid-October with OTC derivatives legislation. He predicted the panel would move a bill to the House floor by the end of the month. His committee will hold a public hearing on Wednesday on reform of the OTC derivatives market. Witnesses will include Gensler.
The Senate has not yet taken up the issue, on which debate is likely to continue for several months.
In addition to exempting some end users from compulsory clearing, the Frank bill would empower regulators to ban swaps deemed “abusive” or bad for market stability and participants.
AGGREGATE DATA TARGETED
Further, it would require the CFTC to make public aggregate data on swap trading volumes and positions. It would authorize the CFTC to set position limits on commodity contracts, and on swap contracts “that perform or affect a significant price discovery function,” said a bill summary obtained by Reuters.
In deciding if a swap has a price-discovery function, the CFTC would have to look at price linkage, arbitrage and other factors, while the agency could exempt any swap or transaction from position limit requirements, the summary said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), another key regulator, could set limits on the size of positions in any security-based swap, with similar latitude on exemptions.
The SEC would also have to publicize “aggregate data on security-based swap trading volumes and positions.”
The Frank draft begins to narrow the terms of a months-old debate about how to categorize portions of the sprawling OTC derivatives market and what to do with each category.
DETROIT — Chrysler Group LLC is getting back into the leasing business in an effort to boost sales, but don’t expect a return to the inexpensive lease deals of the past.
The automaker announced in a statement Wednesday that it will resume leasing for all 2010 Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models starting today, and it will offer some special deals on selected vehicles through Sept. 30.
Chrysler brand CEO Peter Fong said in the statement that leases will give more options to consumers and will be competitive with the U.S. auto market low interest rate personal loans. The leases will be underwritten by Chrysler’s new preferred lender, GMAC Financial Services.
But the market isn’t as competitive as it once was. As recently as last summer, automakers were using cheap lease deals to clear dealer lots of unwanted cars and trucks.
But now most automakers have cut factory production to match lower sales, and most have record low inventories.
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