What is Mine is Not Yours and What is Yours is in Fact Mine: Copyright, Consumers and First Sale

Pascale Chapdelaine is a member of IP Osgoode, Ph.D. (candidate) Osgoode Hall Law School and is Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. My current research work to substantiate and better define consumers’ rights to copies of copyrighted works recurrently leads towards one of the great contemporary legal challenges: the nature of […]

Focus on Gaming: Q&A with Susan Abramovitch

Susan H. Abramovitch is a partner in Gowlings' Toronto office, practising exclusively in entertainment law. Susan's practice covers all aspects of music industry transactions, as well as film, television, live theatre, multimedia, videogaming and book publishing. IPilogue Editor Stuart Freen sat down with her earlier this week to talk about the video gaming industry and […]

Eminem iTunes Royalties Decision Stands

Nathan Fan is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School On 22 October 2010, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused a re-hearing of its earlier decision in September, finalizing the appellate court’s ruling in favour of Eminem’s production company F.B.T., against Universal Music Group, over royalties to be paid for online music sales. […]

Implications and Meaning of a Perpetual Licence

Virgil Cojocaru is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. In BMS Computer Solutions Limited and AB Agri Limited the meaning and interpretation of a perpetual licence came under debate in an application for summary judgment. The dispute concerns an animal feed maker, AB Agri (Agri), and BMS Computer Solutions (BMS), the software developer. […]

How to Approach Non-Practicing Entities

Virgil Cojocaru is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Using various processes or technologies is a minefield. Patent trolls or non practicing entities (NPE) are a large part of the problem. Knowing how to deal with their likes becomes a matter of legal tactics and strategy. However, before getting into potential solutions, we […]

Gospel, Gold Diggers, and Gum Trees: How Sampling Litigation Changes the Tune

Ren Bucholz is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Intellectual Property Theory course. Copyright holders, like musicians, have a knack for riffing on ideas from the past.  Consider the many variations of the copyright infringement lawsuit.  Every year brings more examples of a rights-holder who hears some element of their song, […]

Licence Agreements and Ownership: Second Hand Sales of Software

Alex Gloor is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. At first glance, the century old doctrine of first-sale seems simple enough. However, as with many other IP doctrines, the digital world has thrown a wrench in this otherwise well-understood principle (see this post on a similar topic). In the case of Vernor v. […]

Copyright for the masses? It’s not quite as black and white

Brian Chau is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Where do we draw the line between commercial and non-commercial uses? Is this view the same across content creators and users? A quick background Creative commons licences are designed to help content creators (who own the copyright) communicate to their users which rights they […]

Creative Commons Licensing: Types, Enforceability and Potential Problems

Creative Commons ("CC") is a non-profit corporation "dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright."  CC provides free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, […]

The Adoption of U.S. Technology in Canada: Is All this Waiting Really Necessary?

A recent article written by Colin Campbell from Maclean's discussed the unfortunate fact that Canada is usually far behind other nations when it comes to adopting new technologies that have been developed in the United States and abroad. His discussion begins with a reference to the Kindle DX. This is the new, wireless e-book reading […]