On August 8, 2008, a US Court ruled that fair use can be used as a defence to the copyright infringement of sound recordings. In this case, EMI Records, the owners of copyright in John Lennon's song "Imagine," sued film producers for using a short clip of the song in their documentary. The court finds […]
In a recent speech made at The CBA Canadian Legal Conference Expo, the Canadian privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, weighed in on the novel privacy concerns arising from advances in information technology. Of central concern in her speech is the widespread dissemination of personal information through online publication of judicial decisions. In some instances the names, […]
Recent public scorn concerning the faulty software patents approved by the United Stated Patent and Trade-Mark Office’s (USPTO) which led to the legal dispute between Research in Motion and NTP [1] may have been the cause for the recent shift in the USPTO’s stance towards a stricter and more onerous test for software patents. The […]
The pervasiveness of the internet and the rise of online communities present new challenges to copyright law and the notion of fair dealing. For instance - In the aftermath of the stabbing death of 14-year old Stefanie Rengel, all of Toronto’s daily newspapers ran photos of her taken from Facebook. Permission was not granted (or […]
The music industry which includes songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels, believes it is increasingly being shortchanged through technological advances, namely the internet and applicable software, which facilitate the sharing, transferring, dissemination of files and in effect, the pirating of copyrighted music. A novel approach to addressing this concern, spearheaded by chief proponent on behalf […]
I feel quite excited seeing people claiming a big triumph of open source on the decision of the U.S. court ruling on Jacobsen v. Katzer case. However, after a closer examination I felt that this is, as Prof. D’Agostino described Robertson v. Thomson, a case where it is hard to tell winner from loser. The […]
Over the last thirty years, investment in the research and development of pharmaceuticals has risen dramatically. However, the availability of new drugs has not matched the rise in investment. Instead, Michael Heller has found that the pharmaceutical industry is stuck in a “patent gridlock”[1], where patent owners are blocking inventors from using patented products and […]
Following late nights out this past August, I could count on getting home, turning on the TV, and catching an Olympic event as it occurred live. My favourite was women’s gymnastics. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was just how meticulously orchestrated the 2008 Beijing Olympic games actually were- and by this […]
In 2006, Jason Fortuny was posting a fake ad on Craigslist. He pretended to be a 27 –year-old female bondage enthusiast. She (Jason) was looking for a “white or latin man … to give intensive pain and discipline.” Fortuny then collected the replies, 178 in total (145 of them with pictures of men showing them […]
In March 2007 Viacom filed a $1 Billion lawsuit alleging that YouTube “actively engage[s] in, promote[s] and induce[s] [copyright] infringement”. Viacom properties such as South Park, Mean Girls and An Inconvenient Truth have been posted on YouTube.[1] For their part, YouTube has asserted a seemingly ironclad defense: Under Section 202 of the Digital Millennium Copyright […]