New Year's Day is synonymous with new beginnings, and 2016 will be no exception. Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), the manifesto in which Adolf Hitler explains his vision for Germany’s future and his political ideologies, will be falling into the public domain on January 1st, 2016. A French publishing house named Fayard, along with a few German editors, have […]
The full version of Lesley Ellen Harris' article is available in the upcoming issue of the Intellectual Property Journal (IPJ). In most organizations, if you have a legal question you head over to the legal department. When someone has a copyright question, however, they often head over to the library or information centre to discuss […]
After Starbucks, American Eagle and Roberto Cavalli, it is now Moschino and its designer Jeremy Scott’s turn (yes, again) to face the latest street art copyright infringement case. Joseph Tierny — a New York artist commonly known as Rime — is accusing Moschino and Scott of “inexplicably plac[ing] [his] art on their highest-profile apparel without his knowledge […]
At first, a request for royalties by the estate of Nazi propagandist Goebbels was considered a joke by counsel for Random House. But the publisher now finds itself in the middle of a legal controversy after releasing a biography about the notorious World War 2 Nazi, which largely draws from Goebbels’s diaries.
With the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games (the “Games”) upon us, IP enthusiasts are eagerly debating the issues surrounding the Games with respect to – well, IP law. One of the many debates permeating conversations is whether athletes can protect sports moves as intellectual property. For example, can a swimmer copyright a secret way of pulling their arms through water? […]
It’s Toronto’s time to shine! This past October, Governor General David Johnston officially declared 2015 to be the “Year of Sport in Canada” and Toronto’s hosting of the Pan American Games is clearly one of the reasons why. The major sporting event is a fantastic opportunity for the city’s economic development. In fact, the Ontario […]
The prince of appropriation strikes again! Visual artist Richard Prince caused a major uproar in the art world with his latest exhibition, New Portraits. The series of photographs, which features enlarged screenshots of Instagram posts made by different users, has been the object of controversy after it was reportedly found that Prince never asked for […]
A decade and a half since music industry titans like the rock group Metallica launched legal action to shut down the largest (unauthorized) distributor of recorded content, the ways that fans and audiophiles are able to access music and other cultural resources appear, once again, to be in flux. 2015 has already seen the headline […]
What does it mean to be “substantial”? No, this is not the kind of question that requires a long reflective look in the mirror (unless that’s your thing...I’m more of the “stare into a sunset pensively” type), but it is the kind of question the Copyright Board recently tried to answer in its May 23rd decision: Access […]
Ugly break-ups are nothing new, but selfies, sexting and social media have opened a new avenue for exes to punish each other. When one ex keeps nude or sexually explicit photos of the other and publishes them to the internet or to their mutual contacts on social media, they create “revenge porn.”