Susan Corbett is a Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington In response to a barrage of criticism, unprecedented in response to a topic as alien to the average kiwi as copyright law, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has announced that section 92A of the Copyright Act 1994 will not come into force […]
A recent blog has commented on copyright reforms proposed at the Leadership Music Digital Summit. In particular, panelists at the seminar had suggested that copyright registration should become mandatory for those seeking copyright protection. At the Summit, registration was seen as a solution to many ‘copyright ills’ including the problems of 'orphan works'. An orphan work is […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. As Kate Lacey correctly notes in her post, the Google Books settlement creates what is essentially a single purpose private compulsory licensing regime benefiting only Google-assuming the settlement is approved at the upcoming fairness hearing for which the filing deadline […]
On March 23, the Toronto Intellectual Property Group and IP Osgoode hosted Mario Bouchard, General Counsel for the Copyright Board of Canada, as a guest speaker at a dinner event in downtown Toronto. Mr. Bouchard focused his discussion on four issues: the role of the Board, copyright fragments, factors causing the Board’s increased workload, and […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. If you believe as I do that "voluntary collective licensing" is neither voluntary, collective nor a license, you will be interested in reading "Choruss's Covenant: The Promised Land (Maybe) For Record Labels; A Lesser Destination For Everyone Else," a very […]
Scientific discourse has always been encouraged as a means of nurturing accuracy and development, but according to a recent article by Andre Picard, the internet has changed the nature of scientific debate for the worse. According to Picard, in the world of cyberspace, scientific “evidence” now increasingly takes the form of anecdotal reports, and “debate” […]
There is a growing concern among media companies that news aggregation websites (NAWs) are taking large portions of original content, ‘shaving away potential readers and profiting from the content’ without properly compensating the media companies that provide the original content. According to the Canadian Copyright Act, such taking of original content is allowed as long as […]
Over an eleven day period ending last Wednesday, three lay judges and one professional judge presided over the most closely followed and polarized trials in recent Swedish history. In their hands lies the fate of the Pirate Bay - the ever-popular BitTorrent website. With the court’s judgment due in April, file-sharers and copyright holders all […]
Denis Barbosa is a Brazilian lawyer and Law Professor. He is Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Graduate Division of the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and also at a number of other graduate programs in law schools elsewhere in the country. Professor Barbosa is a member of IP Osgoode's international advisory council. […]
The paperless office is yet to arrive, but that hasn’t stopped companies from introducing innovative ways of consuming written materials. One such attempt is Amazon.com’s e-book, called ‘Kindle’. When first released in late 2007, I looked at how purchasers of content for the device may be limited in their ability to re-sell their copy of […]