Reproduction Archives

Is Google News legal? (Updated)

In May, 2011 a Belgium appellant court released an important decision finding Google liable for copyright infringement by offering its Google News service to subscribers in Belgium at the Google.be and Google.com websites. The decision in Google Inc v Copiepresse et al, Brussels Court of Appeal (9^th Chamber) May 5, 2011 suggests that services such as Google News cannot be legally offered in many countries around the world even from servers located in North America.

On February 14, 2012, the UK Copyright Tribunal in the Meltwater Holding BV v The Newspaper Licensing Agency Limited case suggested Google News and the Google Alerts service would also be illegal in the UK without a license from publishers.…

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Copyright law 2011 –the year in review in Canada and around the world

Yesterday, I gave a talk at the Law Society of Upper Canada’s 16th Annual Intellectual Property Law: The Year in Review program. My talk canvassed developments in copyright in 2011. My slides are shown below. The associated paper prepared in collaboration with Glen Bloom, with the help of others, is available here.

My slides and/or the paper summarize the following copyright cases from Canada, the USA, UK and Europe:

CANADA

Re: Sound v Motion Picture Theatre Association of Canada 2011 FCA 70

Reference re Broadcasting Act 2011 FCA 64

Crookes v. …

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Cyberlockers, social media sites and copyright liability

2011 was the year US copyright law was put to the test confronting whether cyberlockers and social media sites are liable for infringements contributed to by these sites. Some sites, like Megaupload, Hotfile, and MP3tunes suffered set backs or losses in the US courts. Others, like Visible Technologies the operator of the myxer.com social radio website and most recentlyVeoh Networks were more successful, at least so far.

Despite all of this litigation, key issues are still being litigated and perhaps will only be settled in the US Supreme Court.…

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France Animation v Robinson – a case comment

I just finished reading the fascinating reasons delivered by the Quebec Court of Appeal in the France Animation v Robinson, 2011 QCCA 1361 case. The main issue in the appeal was whether sketches and characters of the proposed TV series Robinson curiosity were infringed by the series Robinson sucro. The trial judge found infringement and the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment, in part.

The case is a gold mine for copyright lawyers. It canvasses many copyright issues including the application of the standard of originality to partially completed works, the test for infringement when there has been substantial alterations and improvements to the original work, the relevance of expert evidence in copyright cases in light of the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Masterpiece Inc.…

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Supreme Court denies leave in satellite radio copyright case

Yesterday the Supreme Court denied CSI’s motion for leave to appeal in the CSI v Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. case. The result leaves standing the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in Sirius Canada Inc. v. CMRRA/SODRAC Inc., 2010 FCA 348. This decision dismissed two judicial review applications from the Copyright Board’s decision released in April, 2009.

The decision of the Federal Court of Appeal contained several important copyright rulings. In particular the Court ruled that:

When an entity provides a service for use with its own designed and manufactured devices e.g.,

…

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Website terms, copyright used to shut down real estate data scraping in Century 21 v Rogers

You can always tell when you are about to read a good case by its opening paragraph. The decision of the BC Supreme Court in Century 21 Canada Limited Partnership v. Rogers Communications Inc., 2011 BCSC 1196 doesn’t disappoint. It begins as follows:

The ability of the law to adapt is part of its strength. Technological innovation tests that resilience. This case considers that ability as claims for breach of contract, trespass to chattels and copyright infringement meet the Internet.

…

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Technological change and copyright

I gave a talk earlier today at Osgoode to the students enrolled in Osgoode’s IP Intensive Program. The topic focused on the impacts of technological change on copyright. My slides are set out below.

Sookman osgoode technology_focus_internet_and_it.ppt

View more presentations from bsookman

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Are music storage lockers legal in the US?

Earlier this week, a US District Court released an import decision on the legality of music lockers services under US law. In the Capital Records , Inc v MP3Tunes, LLC, 2011 WL 3667335 (S.D.N.Y., Aug 22, 2011) case, the court ruled that MP3Tunes was liable for contributory infringement by providing storage locker services to its users when it knew that they had unlawfully downloaded copyright protected materials into the lockers. MP3Tunes was found liable because it allowed users to continue to store and access songs listed in valid copyright takedown notices.…

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Google’s search service exonerated from copyright liability by a French court

When Google searches the web and indexes and caches and makes thumbnail copies of visual works available to the public, is it liable for copyright infringement? Also, which country’s copyright laws apply to determining Google’s liability? Is it US law where much of the indexing and caching take place and from where Google transmits thumbnails and links to original works of art to the public? Or is it the place where the thumbnails are viewed (or communicated to)?

These issues were considered by the Paris Court of Appeal in the La société Des Auteurs des Arts Visuels et de L’image Fixe Visual Auteurs (SAIF) v Google France S.A.R.L.…

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Robertson 2 copyright class action settles

The lawyers for Heather Robertson have announced the settlement of the “Robertson 2” class action copyright case. The freelance authors reached a tentative settlement worth more than $5 million with the publisher defendants which include the Toronto Star, Rogers Publishing Limited, CEDROM-SNi Inc., and ProQuest Information and Learning LLC.

The suit alleged that the defendants infringed on the copyrights of the freelance writers by disseminating their articles online without their consent.

There will be a hearing in the Ontario Superior Court on April 11 for the court to consider whether to approve the settlement.…

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