Archive for February, 2008

The Battle over the Rights to “Zombies in a Mall”

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

When asked to think about the pop-culture zombie genre, classics such as George A. Romero’s 1979 film “Dawn of the Dead” (and its 2004 remake) and Peter Jackson’s 1992 creation “Dead Alive” come to mind. After all, the storylines read typically: man battling the undead for ultimate survival. Joining the genre ...

Faster Than A Speeding Lawsuit

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

In two months’ time, the estate of Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, will finally take Time-Warner Communications (via its subsidiary, DC Comics) to trial over ownership of copyright. Siegel (along with artist Joe Shuster) created Superman in 1928, and DC Comics currently owns the rights. Of course, it’s not that simple. ...

Some Share the Files, All Share the Costs

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

The Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) recently proposed legalization of peer-to-peer music filesharing via the imposition of an obligatory $5 monthly fee on all Canadian broadband users. It is estimated that this would result in the collection of $500 million to $900 million per year, to be distributed to musicians ...

Targeting Individuals: Targeted Advertising on Online Social Networks

Saturday, February 16th, 2008

Advertising has always been, or has tried to be, “targeted” at potential and existing customers. The entire purpose of advertising has, and continues to be, to communicate the virtues of a product or services to consumers in the marketplace in an effort to turn potential consumers into actual customers. In the ...

New tools for new paradigm - Robertson v. Thompson Corp.

Monday, February 11th, 2008

I’m going to show you how to be a millionaire. First, draw a line on a piece of paper. Great. You have just created a one-dimensional world. In this world, people can only move linearly since there are no ‘sides.’ So, they can’t see you even when you are next to ...

Mashups, Fair Use and Community Standards

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Mashup culture continues to expand and proliferate, especially in the online word. Many audience members are no longer content merely to consume media, but actively comment on it, interact with it and reshape it. The explosion of repurposed copyrighted material that appears online challenges old notions of the fair use ...

Effective Copyright Online – Drawing from Tariff 22 and 22A

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

Illegal file trading will likely exist on the internet for the foreseeable future. As a result we are faced with the challenge of upholding the notions of copyright online or changing the scope of such laws and legalizing, to some extent, file trading. The former is an objective ...