Bill C-30 Killed – Replacement On The Way
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has stated that Bill C-30 will not proceed in Parliament in response to the concerns brought up by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and members of the public.
This bill would have enabled police to access internet traffic without a warrant and would have required the installation and maintenance of extra equipment by internet providers, who would have passed the associated expenditures down to the consumer.
Canadians would not only have lost rights in regards to privacy but could have also been subjected to security breaches via the new aforementioned online spying equipment had this bill gone through.
A new bill will be unveiled shortly in Parliament so additional information will be posted to this blog a.s.a.p.
Retail News – Future Shop/Best Buy/HMV U.K
Eight Future Shop and seven Best Buy stores are set to close though-out Canada as the company restructures their retail operations.
According to a January 31st, 2013 press release smaller retail operations will replace these stores :
Best Buy stores in Queensborough, Nanaimo, Victoria, Langford (Westshore Town Centre), and South Surrey, British Columbia; and Lachenaie, and Sherbrooke (SmartCentres Sherbrooke), Quebec.
Future Shop stores in West Kelowna, British Columbia; Montreal (Forum Entertainment Center), Laval (First Pro Ste-Dorothee), Quebec; Regent, Manitoba; Macleod, Calgary; as well as Ancaster, Barrie South and Erin Mills, Ontario.
Best Buy Mobile locations will expand whilst smaller Future Shop “web stores”.
On the other side of the pond, HMV U.K is also restructuring and is not currently taking online orders via their site.
Sixteen stores have been closed in Ireland and half of the 223 U.K stores are expected to close shortly.
Gift Cards On Sale At Best Buy
Bestbuy Canada is selling a $60 iTunes gift card multi-pack for $55 at their stores, starting today.
The multi-card pack includes four $15 gift cards and this offer will be available until December 24th, 2012. But unfortunately these are not available to purchase online from Bestbuy Canada.
You can send gift cards from iTunes itself though.
Google Introduces Scan & Match Service
Google’s new scan and match music service is online in the States, as of yesterday. And though subscribers are limited to 20,000 recordings, the service is free and streams 320kbps recordings.
At the moment Amazon.com
offers 25,000 recordings at 256 kbps for $24.99 per year to Americans and $27.99 per year to Canadians. But both store music purchased through their service for free.
There’s no news in regards to a service for Canadians by Google but a $4.99 per month, unlimited music streaming service is available : Millions of tracks, free for 7 days on rara.com. Click here
Teksavvy Issues Statement
Teksavvy has stated in a recent blog entry that they have received a request for information in regards to 2000 IP addresses.
According to this blog entry, Voltage Pictures LLC intends to file a lawsuit on December 17th, 2012 in order to gain this information from the Chatham, Ontario based internet provider. And many members of the media have speculated that this is related to the illegal downloading of “The Hurt Locker
The company claims that it intends to fight for their customer’s privacy. Click here to access the legal documents on this case.
File Sharing Lawsuits In Canada ?
British Columbia based NGN Prima Production will soon be sending notices to individual Canadians who have illegally downloaded a film entitled “Recoil
This company has successfully sued to gain access to the identifiable information behind 50 IP addresses, that it suspected were involved in the illegal distribution of this Steve Austin action film.
Four internet providers (3 Web, Access Communications Co-Operative, ACN, and Distributel Communications) have been ordered by the Federal Court in Montreal to hand over information in regards to those 50 IP addresses to NGN Prima Production, by the beginning of December.
The maximum penalty for non-commercial infringement is $5000 now that Bill C-11 has come into force. But many experts suspect that it may be significantly reduced by the courts in some cases.