I would pay money for this.

It is an open question as to whether Rob Ford's career is over; he can run again in the next election, and he might even win.

Just looking at the statute, and it's complicated but it looks to me like the rule is that you can get any actual damages you can prove, or elect before the end of the trial to get statutory damages. The statutory damages would be between $100 and $5000 for non-commercial infringers, jointly and severally. Which essentially means that if you file a lawsuit with 10 infringers and 1000 songs each, if you elect stat damages you're limited to at most $5k for all the infringers. Which is kinda nifty. And very very tricky. Stat max for commercial infringers if you take this option is $20k.

Maybe I should get into copyright law.

I think you're essentially correct, with the caveat that I don't know whether the cap is per infringer or per infringing song. I'm sure you can appreciate the difference. It's still better than minimum statutory damages.

Er, the cap is $5000, and the injured party has to prove actual damages.

Ahem, excuse me sir, but I believe the proper term is "Canuckistanis". Sorry to bother you.

From the article:

"At the moment, Canada is arguably more restrictive than even the U.S., though the digital lock rules do not carry significant penalties for individuals. Under Canadian law, it is not an infringement to possess tools or software that can be used to circumvent digital locks and liability is limited to actual damages in non-commercial cases."

The liability limitation will likely take some of the sting out of the lock provision, as will the $5000 cap on damages for non-commercial infringement. Looks like a bit of a legislative hack, but I suspect that if you're ripping your dvds to stream them around your house you won't have much to worry about (no damages to speak of), and even if you're torrenting your rip, the damages would be pretty low (less than $5000), which is not going to make a big inviting target for the CRIA to attack. Of course, YMMV, I am not your lawyer, etc etc.

This.

That's a great .sig, right there.

Not that micro-USB standards are all that standard. I just got a Blackberry Playbook through work to go with my BB phone. Imagine my surprise when my micro-USB charger and USB cable for the phone don't work to charge the Playbook. All the sins great and small attributed to Apple have been committed by RIM on its users since time immemorial.

Apple's been doing this with (some of) their software titles for years. This is nothing new to them at all. The only thing that's new is that expectations are higher for Apple now, and they can't release a product without the eyes of the world scrutinizing every tiny thing they do.

Everyone's making a big deal about Apple Map software, but nobody seems to remember that Safari, iTunes, and a half-dozen other Apple applications are steaming piles of shit, and that to make a proper operating system, they had to buy one that was based on BSD. This isn't about Apple adopting a bad software dev strategy, it's about Apple's bad software dev strategy biting them in the ass for the first time.*

*Disclosure and notice to the flame-warriors: I say these terrible things about Apple not because I'm an Apple hater, but because I've been using Apple products almost exclusively for many years now, and have much experience with Apple's flaws as well as its finer qualities.

Funny, I checked out the big three providers in Canada, and not only do they all offer Visual Voicemail, they offer it for all smartphones.

Visual voicemail is available on Telus in Canada. Maybe on the other carriers too.