Canada Introduces Bill to Ban Piracy Settlement Notices

A new bill introduced by the Canadian Government proposes to ban the inclusion of settlement demands in the piracy notices ISPs are required to forward to subscribers. This practice is seen as an abuse of the country’s “notice-and-notice” scheme and has been criticized by copyright experts, activists, as well as Internet providers.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Following an update of Canada’s copyright law in 2015, ISPs are required to forward copyright infringement notices to their customers.

As a result of this “notice and notice scheme,” millions of Internet subscribers have received warnings in their mailboxes, with some asking for cash settlements.

The so-called notice-and-notice system is aimed at reducing local piracy rates. While that may have been well-intentioned, some copyright holders took advantage of the system to send subscribers settlement offers, or threaten them with legal penalties.

This scheme is facilitated by companies such as Rightscorp, which are also active in the United States. In Canada, however, there was some serious backlash.

Just last week we reported how several large Internet providers, including Bell and Rogers, want the settlement language removed. The Government clearly agrees with this, as a new Bill, published yesterday, will make that possible.

The applicable language is part of the budget implementation Bill C-86 and reads as follows.

A notice of claimed infringement shall not contain
(a) an offer to settle the claimed infringement;
(b) a request or demand, made in relation to the claimed infringement, for payment or for personal information;
(c) a reference, including by way of hyperlink, to such an offer, request or demand; and
(d) any other information that may be prescribed by regulation.

This text will effectively ban all settlement attempts. That’s good news for members of the public who are no longer at risk. However, the Rightscorps of this world will be less pleased, as it destroys their business model in Canada.

Regular lawsuits, which require copyright holders to go through the courts to identify account holders, are entirely separate and still remain an option of course.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist, who highlighted the new bill earlier today, is happy with the proposal, even though it took longer than hoped.

“It has taken several years, but the government has at long last taken steps to stop the abuse by establishing requirements that effectively ban the inclusion of settlement demands within the notice-and-notice system,” Geist says.

The bill is still in the early stages and has yet to be voted on and implemented. Given the public responses we’ve seen so far, however, it seems unlikely that many lawmakers will argue against the settlement ban.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Dealmaster: Take up to 25% off an Amazon Fire HD tablet

Plus $600 off a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon or get a 128GB microSD card for $25.

Dealmaster: Take up to 25% off an Amazon Fire HD tablet

Enlarge (credit: TechBargains)

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is highlighted by a new set of deals on Amazon's Fire tablets.

All three of Amazon's primary slates are on sale: the entry-level Fire 7 and larger Fire HD 10 are down 20-percent to $40 and $120, respectively, while the mid-tier Fire HD 8 is down 25-percent to $60. Of those, the Fire HD 8 is probably the best buy for most: that HD display is a big step up from the dirt-cheap panel on the Fire 7, but, at $60, it's still plenty affordable for a tablet that's really best suited for casual Web browsing, video viewing, and generally tossing around the house. But the Fire HD 10 is still decent if you need the bigger display, and it's worth noting that the "Kids Edition" models of these devices are all currently discounted as well.

We also have an all-time low on the 128GB variant of Samsung's EVO Select microSD card, a $600 discount on a recommended configuration of Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop (an Ars favorite), a nice deal on an Amazon Echo Dot and Tile Bluetooth tracker bundle, and much more. Have a look for yourself below.

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Apple: Macbook Pro mit AMD Vega-Grafikoption

Apple hat ohne gesonderte Ankündigung auf dem Herbst-Event ein Update für seine Macbook-Pro-Produktlinie vorgestellt. Ab November 2018 gibt es die Notebooks erstmals mit AMDs Radeon Pro Vega. (Macbook, Apple)

Apple hat ohne gesonderte Ankündigung auf dem Herbst-Event ein Update für seine Macbook-Pro-Produktlinie vorgestellt. Ab November 2018 gibt es die Notebooks erstmals mit AMDs Radeon Pro Vega. (Macbook, Apple)

How do we figure out that rocks are billions of years old?

Radiometric dating tells us everything from the age of wood to the age of the Earth.

Ars explains: How do we find out how old some rocks are? Click here for transcript.

For our first entry of our new science video series, we looked at some one-of-a-kind hardware that gets things moving at nearly the speed of light. Today, we're going to take a look at a process that takes place all over the world. While it does require some specialized equipment, the equipment is common enough that many universities have their own version. Despite being relatively common, though, we can still learn some amazing things from it.

The subject of this description is radiometric dating, which uses radioactive decay of some elements to figure out how old things are. Putting an age on something may seem fairly mundane, but the simple answers provided by dating can impact a huge range of scientific fields.

Carbon dating helps us understand when cultural artifacts were made and when archeological samples were deposited. It helps us figure out when lost environments flourished. Other isotopes let us go older, figuring out when extinct species lived and when evidence of past climate change was put in place. Deeper back in time, we can work through movements of supercontinents that no longer exist, the formation of the Earth's first rocks, and (using some off-world samples) even the start of the Solar System.

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Daily Deals (10-30-2018)

Apple’s new iPad Pro tablets are up for pre-order for $799 and up starting today. They’re Apple’s most powerful tablets to date, but if you’re not married to the Apple ecosystem and/or don’t need the fancy new Apple A12X p…

Apple’s new iPad Pro tablets are up for pre-order for $799 and up starting today. They’re Apple’s most powerful tablets to date, but if you’re not married to the Apple ecosystem and/or don’t need the fancy new Apple A12X processor, Face ID support, or Retina display, there are cheaper options. Microsoft’s Surface Go tablets, for […]

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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Vodafone beginnt Gigabit-Angebot in weiterem Bundesland

Nach Bayern und Sachsen schaltet Vodafone Docsis 3.1 in einem dritten Bundesland an. Ein Landesminister sieht dies als wichtigen Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Glasfaser- und Mobilfunk-Infrastruktur. (Vodafone, Telekommunikation)

Nach Bayern und Sachsen schaltet Vodafone Docsis 3.1 in einem dritten Bundesland an. Ein Landesminister sieht dies als wichtigen Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Glasfaser- und Mobilfunk-Infrastruktur. (Vodafone, Telekommunikation)

Apple confirms iOS 12.1 shipping today with 32-person Group Facetime

Dual-SIM support for iPhone XS and XR, 70 new emoji.

Group Facetime for up to 32 simultaneous participants, coming to iOS 12.1.

Group Facetime for up to 32 simultaneous participants, coming to iOS 12.1. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

NEW YORK—Apple CEO Tim Cook concluded today's Apple news event by confirming the release of iOS 12.1 for all iOS devices.

Cook confirmed a few particular features shipping in 12.1, most notably a Group Facetime feature that will support a whopping 32 simultaneous participants.

As Apple's announcement site clarifies:

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Face ID: iPad Pro verliert den Homebutton und zieht den Stift an

Apple hat zwei neue iPad Pro mitsamt dem Apple Pencil 2 vorgestellt. Der Tabletrahmen ist schmaler geworden, der Homebutton fehlt und mit Face ID wird der Benutzer identifiziert. Um 5K an externen Displays zu unterstützen, wurde USB Typ C eingebaut. (i…

Apple hat zwei neue iPad Pro mitsamt dem Apple Pencil 2 vorgestellt. Der Tabletrahmen ist schmaler geworden, der Homebutton fehlt und mit Face ID wird der Benutzer identifiziert. Um 5K an externen Displays zu unterstützen, wurde USB Typ C eingebaut. (iPad Pro, Apple)

Before crucial holiday season, Nintendo struggles as Sony shines

Quarterly earnings show resilience for the PS4, underperformance for Switch.

An article about Sony and Nintendo's console fortunes seems a good excuse to run a photo of their decades-old failed console collaboration.

Enlarge / An article about Sony and Nintendo's console fortunes seems a good excuse to run a photo of their decades-old failed console collaboration. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

As 2017 came to a close, Nintendo was busy reveling in Switch sales that were exceeding expectations while Sony's PlayStation 4 was showing signs that its strong sales had peaked. Leading into the all important 2018 holiday season, the companies' comparative console war outlooks seem to have changed a bit.

Let's start with Nintendo, which recently announced worldwide shipments of 3.2 million Switch systems in the July through September quarter. The good news is that's up slightly from the 2.93 million sold in the same period a year ago. The bad news is that slight increase doesn't put Nintendo on track to meet its long-standing projection for 20 million Switch units sold during the fiscal year (which ends in March 2019). Overall, Nintendo's quarterly profits and revenues both came in significantly below analyst estimates as well, though both were up from a year prior.

A strong holiday season could give Nintendo the boost it needs to hit that target, of course. But Nintendo's next two months feature only a couple of major first-party titles—November's Pokémon: Let's Go and December's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—alongside a laundry list of third-party ports and downloadable indie games.

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Apple’s newest iPad Pro has thinner bezels, Face ID, updated Apple Pencil

Apple is updating its iPad Pro with a new model featuring slimmer bezels, a thinner design, and no home button. Instead it has a Face ID camera system that lets you login to the device by looking at it. They’re also the first iPads to feature USB…

Apple is updating its iPad Pro with a new model featuring slimmer bezels, a thinner design, and no home button. Instead it has a Face ID camera system that lets you login to the device by looking at it. They’re also the first iPads to feature USB Type-C ports. Prices start at $799 for an […]

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