UPDATE: Given the recent Muslim ban in the United States, a National Day of Action against Islamophobia and White Supremacy has been scheduled for February 4th. So this National Day of Action to #ProtectPressFreedom, organized by the CJFE, has now been moved to February 25th.

The rally to support Ben Makuch will still be going ahead on February 6th in Toronto.

Happy 2017, everyone! Here at OpenMedia, our office has that familiar hum again, as our team arrive back from holiday vacations re-energized and up to tackle the challenges of the new year. I know we all really appreciated the chance for some downtime after a hectic December rounded off an especially busy year for us.

Already it's clear that 2017 has lots in store -- on privacy, affordable access, and free expression it's shaping up to be a make or break year for our digital rights. As a community, we'll need to pull out all the stops over the next twelve months to safeguard the free and open Internet we hold dear.

As indescribably nebulous and expansive as the Internet can be, one could compare it to outer space, but never to a vacuum. Almost anything that happens online will eventually find its place in a web of real-world context, whether by reference, implication, cause, or consequence. It is this persistently dual nature of the Internet -- a space clearly its own and separate from the bricks-and-mortar world, yet in every way wrapped up with our everyday, offline lives -- that makes it so difficult for courts and other decision-makers to wrap their minds, and laws, around.

There's a set of confusing phrases you may have heard floating around the Internet on digital rights or intellectual property blogs -- or maybe it was that one time you tried to actually read the terms and conditions?

Today we're going to dig into what we're calling "The Notice Trio." These ones:

• Notice and Notice

• Notice and Takedown

• Notice and Staydown

2017 is shaping up to be a big year for copyright around the world. If you've been following our work in the European Union, you know that this year is when rubber meets the road for revising the Copyright Directive. (If you haven't yet, join us at SaveTheLink.org!)

If you've opened your eyes in the last two months, you'll know that there's a new boogeyman coming to deceive you and your family: the phenomenon of "fake news."

The spectre of fake news has been flooding the airwaves -- with a noticeable uptick since the U.S. federal election in November -- and it seems to be gaining steam with every passing day.

Shortly after election night, we received the news that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was on rocky ground in the United States. As much as most of us were ready to bounce off the walls in face of such a major victory for the people, it didn't seem quite right to declare confidently that the agreement was "dead" just yet.

The truth is that, yes -- the TPP faced a major defeat with the loss of the U.S. support and the statements senior government officials that they would not pursue a vote in the lame duck session of Congress.

Do you have a question about the "link tax"? What kind of controls will new copyright proposals actually place on content creation? Why do we talk about censorship machines? What is the upload filter? We're inviting you to ask us anything!

On Wednesday, November 30 at 8:00 am PST/5:00 pm CET, OpenMedia's communications specialist Meghan Sali and I will be joining our expert digital rights partners for a Reddit AMA, answering questions about the impending threat of the link tax and increased censorship in the EU. If you're not familiar, AMA means "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit. It’s a popular place for open live Q&As.  Check out reddit.com/r/iama where it will be hosted.

This week, I had a chance to observe firsthand how federal Ministers Mélanie Joly and Navdeep Bains are responding to rumours of the "Internet tax" that have taken our corner of the digital rights world by storm.

Spoiler alert: it was not reassuring.

Bill C-51 is creating new legacies in Canada. Our freedom of expression, our right to privacy, and our personal security are all undergoing frightening shifts.

But perhaps the greatest legacy of C-51 threatens to be this: a succession of failures by successive governments to listen to Canadians.

As Parliament's public safety committee recently concluded a jam-packed week of public consultations on C-51 and privacy, high hopes for this latest promise to finally listen to our feedback faded fast.

For the last two years we have been working together to ensure that the new copyright proposals in the EU doesn't crush our free expression online. But when the proposal finally came out last month, it confirmed our worst fears: The link tax is still alive.