Jacqueline Lipton is a Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University. She is Co-Director for the Center of Law, Technology, and the Arts, and the Associate Director of the Frederick K Cox International Law Center. Professor Lipton is also an IP Osgoode Research Affiliate. As Facebook welcomes its 200 millionth active user, now is […]
Court decisions relating to privacy matters have been in the news quite a bit recently. On April 9th, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage that has been left close to the edge of one’s property line. The case, R. v. Patrick, was unanimous at 7-0, […]
ViVien Hoang is a first year law student at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Legal Values: Challenges in Intellectual Property course. Aubry v. Editions Vice-Versa, [1998] 1 S.C.R. 591 altered the legal landscape in which photographers were operating in Quebec. Aubry distinguishes Canadian public photography laws from American ones; the contrast is evident when […]
Kevin Osborne is a first year law student at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Legal Values: Challenges in Intellectual Property course When you give your email address to a website, do you expect that site to offer it to anyone who asks for it? How much privacy do you expect? A recent case heard […]
In a recent opinion piece at wired.com, Bruce Schneier criticizes the “expectation of privacy” test that is used to interpret the fourth amendment of the United States. He notes that this test is dangerous, because “the whole ‘expectations’ test is circular -- what the government does affects what the government can do”. The American constitution […]
Richard Warman is an Ottawa-based lawyer active in human rights law and is well known for initiating complaints against white supremacists and neo-nazis for Canadian Human Rights Act violations in the realm of the Internet. One of Warman’s most recent targets is the controversial online forum, FreeDominion.ca. In the action, Warman claims damages for allegedly […]
Liberal MP Marlene Jennings has taken it upon herself to re-table her lawful access bill, called the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act (MITA). Bill C-285 proposes to facilitate lawful interception of information transmitted via telecom service providers (TSP). The purpose delineated in the Act is: “... to ensure that [TSPs] have the capability to enable […]
Andrea Slane is the Executive Director of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy (CILP) at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law and is an IP Osgoode Research Affiliate. The practice of "sexting" - teens sending sexual, nude or semi-nude photos of themselves through text messaging programs on cell phones - is currently garnering […]
Two recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice judgments have allowed for law enforcement agencies to obtain subscriber information from internet service providers without a warrant. In both cases police officers used IP addresses of suspected child pornography carriers, which they had obtained themselves, to get corresponding names and addresses. This has alarmed privacy advocates, and […]
A settlement has been reached in the U.S. trademark/web linking dispute between law firm Jones Day and real estate information site BlockShopper.com. Jones Day had sought to prevent BlockShopper from linking to Jones Day’s site because they claimed BlockShopper improperly used Jones Day’s marks and gave the impression that Jones Day somehow approved or was […]