bob tarantino

Don't Call It a Comeback

JJ McCullogh and I had a long discussion about the Supreme Court of Canada, judging and politics - read it here.

Neil Boyd wrote something at The Mark about the elimination of the faint hope clause - something which I felt merited a response, a response which the good folks at The Mark published here.

British Association for Canadian Studies Conference

The good folks at the British Association for Canadian Studies were generous enough to accept my proposal for a panel at their Being, Becoming and Belonging: Multiculturalism, Diversity and Social Inclusion in Modern Canada conference, which is taking place here in Oxford at the end of March. My paper is entitled (actually, I suppose that should be rendered as will be entitled - still need to write the damn thing) “Free to deal as he may choose” – Why displacing “freedom of commerce” was a necessary condition to the creation of Canadian multiculturalism.  For a flavour of what it's going to look like, this was the proposal which I submitted.  I'll be presenting on March 30th - hecklers encouraged.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A black man in Montreal walks into a bar and orders a drink; the bartender says, “We don’t serve your kind here, get out.

If you’re waiting for a punch-line, there isn’t one. That’s a true story – actually two true stories, separated by about sixty years. There’s more to the stories, of course – the first time it occurred, in the late 1930s, the Canadian legal system, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, told Fred Christie (and, by extension, all Canadians) that the owners of the bar had every right to refuse to serve him just because they did not like the colour of his skin (in a perfectly Canadian twist, the court decisions also hinged on whether “beer” could be considered “food”). When it happened again in 2003, the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ordered the owners of the bar in question to pay a total fine of $16,000. How virtually identical cases resulted in such radically different decisions is a function of the institutional mechanisms, legal structures and cultural discourses which were disassembled and then constructed in the intervening years.

Using as frames of reference the Christie case and the Viola Desmond incident in Nova Scotia, this paper briefly explores the Canadian history of how freedom of contract became sublimated to concerns about the deleterious and pervasive effects of discrimination, and describes how only with the advent of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was Canadian common law irrevocably wrenched away from permitting discrimination housed under the guise of “freedom of contract”.

Out in the World 08.14.08

Though it may degenerate into an all-out brawl, thus rendering the proceedings unsuitable for broadcast, I'll be joining Kathy Shaidle, the Flea and Jason Cherniak for a taping of the Michael Coren show on Thursday, August 14, 2008.

Out in the World 08.13.08

I'll be in Montreal on Wednesday at the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada's The Business of Copyright course (I'll be co-presenting the Track 1- Copyright in Entertainment and Publishing - Film and Television Issues seminar at 2:30pm with my colleague Stephen Zolf).  Feel free to come by and heckle.

On TV 01.17.08

The good folks at Daytime Toronto will be interviewing me about Under Arrest - Canadian Laws You Won't Believe on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 11am (I understand the show will be re-broadcast the same day at 4pm and 11pm).

Speaking of Under Arrest (which is back in stock at amazon.ca *ahem*), and it's startling (*ahem*) relevance to your daily life, Chapter Two (entitled, rather unimaginatively, "A Gunfight at High Noon? Too Uncivilized") should have been required reading for this guy, charged as he is with 42 counts of promoting and/or being present at an illegal "prize fight".  Charges for illegal prize fighting are fairly rare these days: in my research the most recent reported case I found was from a 1998 mixed martial arts tournament in Ontario.  Among other things, Under Arrest covers the history and law of duelling in Canada, along with prize fights (which used to be prosecuted with a fair bit of vigour), hockey violence and animal fights.  I quote:

Immersed in a world where on-demand savagery is available for download, saturated with violent imagery from boxing matches, bench-clearing brawls on television, movies, mixed martial arts tournaments and the exploits of their peers, perhaps the lifting of the cap on consensual violence has led to its normalization as part of the social fabric.  The assessment of whether that is good or ill, and the inevitable legal response to the problem, is likely to resemble the legal history we have already seen.

Pick up the book to find out what that legal history is.

On TV 10.29.07

Since I'm at my most ravishing very, very, very early in the morning, you'll be lucky enough to enjoy the sight as the nice folks at Toronto's Breakfast Television will be having me on their show on Monday, October 29, 2007 to chat about Under Arrest - Canadian Laws You Won't Believe.  Evidently I need to be at the CHUM/City building at 6:30am, and then I kind of kick around for a while waiting to be put on the air, during which time I will bother the people working there about whether they knew Steve Anthony when he was a MuchMusic VJ , because he was the best.  Shouts to the publicity team at Dundurn for putting this together.  Pace Kevin Frankish, I will not be wearing suspenders.

On the Radio 09.16.07

Mike McIntyre has been gracious enough to host me tonight at around 8:30pm (EST) on his radio show Crime and Punishment - you can listen live at various stations across the country, including CJOB.

On the Radio 09.13.07

Lotta love to the Dundurn publicity team (with special shouts to Ali): the radio onslaught continues unabated.  On Thursday, September 13, 2007, the following have been gracious enough to host me:

• at 1am (!) Peter Anthony Holder (CJAD AM 800 - Montreal and CFRB 1010AM - Toronto)

• at noon (EST) / 9am (PST) Joe Easingwood (C-FAX 1070AM - Victoria)

On the Radio 09.07.07

The good folks at AM800 (CKLM) in Windsor, Ontario have booked me for an interview to discuss Under Arrest - Canadian Laws You Won't Believe on Friday, September 7, 2007 at around 3:48pm.  Hosting will be Melanie Deveau.

On the Radio 09.05.07

Under Arrest promotional activities are beginning in earnest, with the good folks at the following radio stations being gracious enough to host me this coming Wednesday, September 5, 2007:

• Tim Denis in the Mornings on 610 CKTB (St. Catharines) - 7:55am
• Eddie Matthews and Marianne Zahoruk on CJCS 1240 (Stratford) - 8:15am

On the Radio 07.04.07

I neglected to mention this last week, but since this will be a recurring matter throughout the summer, now's a good time to bring it up: every Wednesday night I will be joining my colleague David Steinberg on Toronto's The Edge 102.1FM, the erstwhile CFNY.  We will be on Dave Bookman's Indie Hour, which starts at 11pm, and will be chatting for a few minutes with Dave about music law and legal issues pertaining to the music industry.  Tonight we'll be talking about Avril Lavigne's current copyright woes.

On the Radio 05.30.07

Rob Breakenridge (or, as I like to refer to him, the Only Man in Canada Brave Enough to Host Me On His Radio Show) has graciously invited me to appear on The World Tonight, on Calgary's CHQR 770AM (there is a "Listen Live" option at the link).  I'll be on at around 8:45pm (EST) / 6:45pm (MST).  We'll be talking about the recent house arrest sentence handed down by an Ontario judge discussed in this post.

Where You At, Rock?

Back in November, when I decided to resume blogging, it was intended that this blog would function at least in large part as an exercise in narcissism self-promotion for various writing projects.  For a variety of reasons, but mostly due to laziness on my part, the extra-curricular writing hasn't proceeded at quite the pace I would have liked.  However, now that the release of Under Arrest is in the (relatively) near future, and having been inspired by a variety of sources (among them: James Bow's frequent progress reports on his latest book, and the news that Canadian sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer's recent announcement of his inking of a six-figure (!) deal for republication rights to his previous novels), it's time to ramp up both the writing and the blogging about the writing.  Or something.  A few snippets, none earth-shattering:

• I had the pleasure earlier today of doing a seminar-style presentation on Canadian defamation law to the good folks at The Weather Network, at their offices in Oakville, Ontario; very cool building they're headquartered in, and the attendees had some perceptive and pertinent questions - hopefully I was able to provide some marginally interesting information
• Under Arrest - Canadian Laws You Won't Believe is evidently still on schedule for a June 30, 2007 release; as I navigate the creator side of the publishing industry (as distinct from the legal side) I'm learning some interesting tidbits; f'rinstance: amazon.ca lists the book (currently at #448,905 in sales! woohoo!) with a June 30 "release date" - but that just means the date the book is available for shipping from the warehouse - actual copies likely won't be in bookstores until early in July
• notwithstanding what I just told you, James Bow and I are finalizing plans for a big book-related blogstravaganza at the end of June
• I'm hoping to have a sample chapter from Under Arrest available for you to, er, enjoy (fingers-crossed) some time soon
• I found out earlier this week from my editor at Dundurn that Dundurn has followed through on plans to commission some illustrations for Under Arrest - I had initially been somewhat hesitant when the idea was presented to me, but I think it could work out quite well; I was somewhat concerned about the tone of the book being compromised by the illustrations - I tried to avoid having the book read like a "bathroom reader" of quirky laws, and the notion of illustrations seemed to weight the balance away from a more sober reading experience; in the end, though, while striking the right tone in the text was one of the most difficult tasks I confronted, I think I may have veered too far towards dustiness - so hopefully the illustrations will have the effect of correcting the sobriety of the writing; I'm expecting to see samples of the illustrations shortly and will report back here on the results
• here is the goal for the rest of the year: one short commentary piece on mechanical royalties in the Canadian online context; one long academic piece on copyright duration for Canadian film and television projects; one novel, currently entitled A Garbled Syntax; total progress on each to date: actually, this bullet point is pretty much it - time to go get started

On the Podcast 04.07.07

Back when the Canadian political blogosphere was young and things were funny, Mike Brock was... a unique voice.  Nearly a year ago, he posted his final post, with the Brockian sign-off, "Media: Go to Hell".  Brock, being irrepressible, is now back, with a regular podcast show, co-hosted with Al MacDermid, which can be found here.  Seeing as how I'm absurdly easy to flatter, Brock graciously contacted me and cleverly informed me he liked my "wicked legal perspective on stuff", and I was sold - I'll be on the podcast this coming Saturday, April 7, 2007 - evidently the files are posted around 6pm (EST).

On the Radio 01.31.07

Rob Breakenridge has graciously invited me to appear on his radio show, The World Tonight, on Calgary's CHQR 770AM (there is a "Listen Live" option at the link).  I'll be on at around 9:35pm (EST) / 7:35pm (CST).  We'll be talking about some of the copyright/IP stories that have been discussed here recently: possible copyright infringement in Conservative television ads; trade-mark issues at The Court.ca; as well as other news stories, such as Hollywood's contention that Canada is a hub for movie pirates (er, not the Johnny Depp kind).