Today’s links Canada’s ground-breaking, hamstrung repair and interop laws: It’s time for the “radical extremists” to have their day. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Canada’s ground-breaking, hamstrung repair and interop laws (permalink) When the GOP trifecta assumes power in just a few months, they will pass laws, and those laws will be terrible, and they will cast long, long shadows. This is the story of how another far-right conservative government used its bulletproof majority to pass a wildly unpopular law that continues to stymie progress to this day. It’s the story of Canada’s Harper Conservative government, and two of its key ministers: Tony Clement and James Moore. Starting in 1998, the US Trade Rep embarked on a long campaign to force every country in the world to enact a new kind of IP law: an “anticircumvention” law that would criminalize the production and use of tools that allowed people to use their own property in ways that the manufacturer disliked. This first entered the US statute books with the 1998 passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), whose Section 1201 established a new felony for circumventing an “access control.” Crucially, DMCA 1201’s prohibition on circumvention did not confine itself to protecting copyright. Circumventing an access…Pluralistic: Canada's ground-breaking, hamstrung repair and interop laws (15 Nov 2024)