Copyright Archives

Fung and Isohunt found liable for inducing worldwide copyright infringement

Earlier this week, a US district court granted summary judgement to MPAA members holding that Gary Fung and four websites operated by him, including Isohunt one of Canada’s largest bittorrent sites, contribute to massive worldwide copyright infringement.

Operators of bittorrent sites like isoHunt often claim they are nothing but content neutral search engines like Google. The Isohunt court disagreed holding, based on uncontested expert evidence, that approximately 95 percent of all files made accessible through Isohunt were infringing or highly likely to be infringing.…

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Only once more – and then Marry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody, including Professor Geist and his devoted followers: the 1996 WIPO Diplomatic Conference, the WIPO Treaties and the balance of interests

Christmas is two days away; I have to concentrate on my eight grandchildren. I am really not in the mood to deal with copyright, and I do not want to read books, articles and blogs about it this year anymore. However, a colleague of mine in Germany (he may not have been in full Christmas mood yet like me) sent me an e-mail asking me to correct somebody’s allegations which he has found obviously untrue (in fact he has used certain adjectives to describe his opinion about those allegations, which, however, I – sticking on the spirit of what is called, at least in my country, the holiday of love – definitely do not want to quote).…

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Dr. Ficsor is right; Prof. Geist is wrong about the WIPO Internet Treaties

Earlier this week, Dr. Ficsor posted a blog inviting Canada to join the international community by ratifying the WIPO Internet Treaties. Dr. Ficsor is an internationally revered copyright scholar and professor and the former Assistant Director General of WIPO. As his posting pointed out, he was also responsible for organizing the preparatory work of the two Treaties, for the 1996 Diplomatic Conference adopting them, and for the first efforts to achieve their adequate implementation, There is no one on the planet who knows more about the treaties or what was intended by them than him.…

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Dr. Ficsor: An invitation to Canada to join the international community by ratifying the WIPO Internet Treaties

Geneva, December 21, 2009: An invitation – presented to Canada to join the international community by ratifying and duly implementing the WIPO “Internet Treaties” – that should not be turn down

On December 14, the international copyright community had a big celebration in Geneva at the headquarters of the World Intellectual Property Organizations (WIPO). The ambassadors of 16 Member States of the European Union and the European Union itself deposited their instruments of ratification of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT).…

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Open source movement gets big boost from copyright laws and DMCA in Jacobsen v Katzer

It is sometimes believed that the open source movement and copyright are incompatible. In fact, the open source community relies on effective copyright protection to support its licensing model.

A case in point is Jacobsen v Katzer. In a landmark decision last year, 535 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2008), the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (CAFC) decided that failure to comply with the conditions terms of the Artistic License could lead to copyright infringement. The CAFC remanded the case back to the district court to consider whether there was infringement on the facts of the case.…

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Canada’s embarrassing place in the BitTorrent rankings, Torrentz.com and IsoHunt world leaders

TorrentFreak just published its Top 25 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2009. The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete, Alexa and SiteReport’s World Rank.

Out of the top 25, 7 of them are located or have connections to Canada. Of the top 10, 4 are located or have connections to Canada. This means that Canada, alone, is home to more than 25% of the world’s public English language unauthorized BitTorrent sites and 40% of the leading ones are in Canada. …

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Non-commercial P2P file sharing is not fair use says court in Sony BMG v Tenenbaum case

A U.S. district court has now issued a wide area injunction in the Sony BMG Music Entertainment v Tenenbaumcase, 2009 WL 4723397 (D.Mass.Dec 7. 2009). The order is as follow:

“…defendant shall be, and hereby is, enjoined from directly or indirectly infringing plaintiffs’ rights under federal or state law in any sound recording, whether now in existence or later created, that is owned or controlled by plaintiffs (or any parent, subsidiary, or affiliate record label of plaintiffs) (“Plaintiffs’ Recordings”), including without limitation by using the Internet or any online media distribution system to reproduce or distribute any of Plaintiffs’ Recordings, except pursuant to a lawful license or with the express authority of plaintiffs.…

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UK launches consultations on copyright exceptions

The UK continues to move forward to modernize its copyright legislation. Fresh from tabling its Digital Economy Bill to address online file sharing, the government now plans to tackle the need for expanded copyright exceptions. It has done so with specific proposals for reform in its consultation document, Taking forward the Gowers Review of IP: Second stage consultation on Copyright Exceptions.

The UK consultation proposal is very relevant for Canadians given the consultation and reform process we are engaged in.…

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Michael Geist inflates pending lists claim to vilify record labels

Prof. Michael Geist is no lover of the recording industry. In fact, he uses every opportunity he gets to slag and demonize it. Like a professional propaganda expert, his attacks use exaggeration, misleading information and half truths to achieve his obvious ends.

Prof. Geist went on a cross country blitz yesterday with his blog, “Canadian Recording Industry Faces $60 Billion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit” and Toronto Star article “Record industry faces liability over `infringement” over the Chet Baker suit, as if something new has happened with the case.…

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Getting the straight goods on ACTA, check your sources

There has been a lot written about what ACTA might finally look like. A good deal of it is intended to tarnish ACTA based on misleading interpretions of what is currently known. I discussed this in a recent post, Fear Mongering and Misinformation Used to Slag ACTA.

Another recent blog posting, Talking About Nerd Stuff: RE: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, reviewed some of the anti-ACTA hype and came to the correct conclusion that simply relying on secondary and tertiary summaries of ACTA would give people a mistaken view about what is really known about the treaty.…

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