Is the Canadian media in a state of financial crisis? Stories on newspaper closures and journalist layoffs have become frustratingly commonplace in recent years, leading to increasingly vocal calls for policy reforms or public funding measures. But Marc Edge, a longtime journalist, editor, and professor at universities around the world, has studied the state of the industry for years and offers a different take. While he is quick to point out the crisis of journalism given cutbacks, he argues that a journalism crisis is not the same as a media crisis. He joins the podcast this week to discuss the historical development of the Canadian media and what the data tells us about the current situation in Canada. The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod. Show Notes: Marc Edge website Credits: House of Commons, May 31, 2019 ...
Communities around the world raced to respond to the coronavirus pandemic last month by shutting down as businesses, schools, and libraries were rendered unavailable seemingly in an instant. One of the effects of the shutdown was that hundreds of millions of books were immediately made inaccessible to students, teachers, and the wider community. The Internet Archive responded with the National Emergency Library, a tweaked version of its Controlled Digital Lending program that brings scanned versions of millions of lawfully acquired books to readers under strict controls. I’ve been a longstanding board member of Internet Archive Canada and was pleased to be joined on the podcast by Brewster Kahle (founder of Internet Archive), Chris Freeland (Director of Open Libraries at Internet Archive), and Kyle Courtney (lawyer, librarian and the copyright advisor at Harvard University) to talk about the Internet Archive, controlled digital lending, the National Emergency Library, and the copyright implications of recent developments. The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod. Credits: NBC Today, The Internet Archive Wants to be a Digital Library For Everything ...
The global struggle for access to COVID-19 vaccines took a dramatic turn recently as the Biden Administration in the United States unexpectedly reversed its longstanding opposition to a patent waiver designed to facilitate access to vaccines in the developing world. The shift seemingly caught many by surprise. Pharmaceutical companies were quick to voice opposition and U.S. allies found themselves being asked to take positions. That was certainly the case in Canada, where the Canadian government has steadfastly refused to support the waiver with repeated claims that it had yet to make a decision. Ellen ‘t Hoen, is a lawyer and public health advocate with over 30 years of experience working on pharmaceutical and intellectual property policies. From 1999 until 2009 she was the director of policy for Médecins sans Frontières’ Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. In 2009 she joined UNITAID in Geneva to set up the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP). Ellen is currently the director of Medicines Law & Policy and a researcher at the University Medical Centre Groningen. She joins the Lawbytes podcast this week to talk about the fight for a patent waiver and the implications of the Biden decision for global access to COVID vaccines. The podcast can be downloaded here, accessed on YouTube, and is embedded below. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod. Credits: CNBC, Biden Administration Supports Waiver of Patent Protections for Covid Vaccines ...