barry sookman Archives

Who is Canada’s Top Lawyer in Copyright, IP, Technology, Privacy & AI?

When search was king, people used to “google” themselves to see what search results appeared. Increasingly, some people are starting to “ChatGPT” themselves asking similar questions. As a lark and experiment, I asked ChatGPT how I rank as a lawyer in Canada in Copyright, IP, Technology, Privacy & AI? The (hopefully unhallucinated) answer is reproduced below.

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Barry B. Sookman is widely recognized in Canada as a pre‑eminent authority in copyright law, intellectual property, technology & Internet law, privacy, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence law.…

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UMG v Veoh: US appeal court sides with Veoh in appeal

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals released a revised opinion in the Veoh Networks case, UMG Recordings v Shelter Capital Partners No. 09—55902 (9^th.Cir. Marc. 14, 2013), superseding the earlier opinion, UMG Recordings v Shelter Capital Partners LLC, 101 U.S.P.Q.2d 1001 (9^th.Cir. 2011). The decision reviewed the scope of the DMCA hosting safe harbor finding it applicable on the facts of the case to the Veoh Networks video sharing site.

In the original decision the Ninth Circuit made three important rulings with respect to the scope of the DMCA hosting safe harbor:

The safe harbor can cover use by service providers of an automated process for transcoding and making files accessible.

…

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The Combating Counterfeit Products Act

Last week, the Government introduced Bill C-56, Combating Counterfeit Products Act. It has two main objectives. First, to protect public safety and health by enacting legislation specifically to target commercial scale trafficking in counterfeit products. Second, to make technical amendments to the Trade-marks Act such as to permit registration of non-traditional trade-marks like sounds, and to improve registration procedures. The Government backgrounder and related FAQs, and other information is available at Industry Canada’s website.

The anti-counterfeiting portion of the legislation addresses recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (May 2007) and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (June 2007) to crack down on commercial counterfeiting operations because of the serious health and safety consequences.…

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CASL

Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL), too much of a good thing

Here is a longer version of my article published in the Financial Post this morning titled Delete this anti-spam law.

Canadians don’t like spam. They also don’t like malware. But the more they learn about Canada’s new, but not yet in force, anti-spam law commonly referred to as CASL (for “Canada’s Anti-spam Legislation”), they don’t like it much either. The root of the problem is that the law starts with the assumption that all Canadians are spammers and purveyors of malware and works back from there by banning legitimate and illegitimate activities with vague rules and incomplete exceptions.…

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Google liability for defamation on Blogger.com: Tamiz v Google

Last week the UK Court of Appeal in Tamiz v Google Inc [2013] EWCA Civ 68 (14 February 2013) ruled that Google, as the host of the Blogger.com site, had potential liability for defamation by failing to take down or disable access to defamatory content once it receives notice that it is hosting such content.

The Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the UK High Court in Tamiz v Google Inc Google UK Ltd [2012] EWHC 449 (QB) (02 March 2012) which had dismissed a claim against Google for not taking down or removing access to allegedly defamatory statements posted on Blogger.com.…

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CASL: the submissions to Industry Canada on the draft regulations

The period for filing submissions to the Industry Canada consultation on the draft Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations has closed.

Industry Canada received numerous submissions from organizations representing all sectors of the Canadian public including charities, not-for profit and educational institutions, private individuals, small, medium and large businesses, retailers, publishers, financial institutions, technology and telecommunications companies, vehicle manufacturers and others. The organizations that filed submissions include the Ontario Nonprofit Network, Imagine Canada, the AUCC, AccessPrivacy, Canadian Bar Association, Magazines Canada, The Canadian Marketing Association, Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada, a Coalition of Business and Technology Associations, The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Retail Council of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Information Technology Association of Canada, and CWTA .…

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Supreme Court hears oral argument in Cinar/Robinson copyright cases (Updated)

Earlier today, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in four copyright cases arising from the decision of 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 webcast from the argument is being archived and will be available here.…

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Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: countering cyber-security threats

In a previous post, Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: why they are needed, I suggested that close scrutiny needs to be given to Industry Canada’s new draft Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations. CASL’s “ban all” structure makes it imperative that generous regulations be adopted to ensure that the goal’s of Canada’s new anti-spam/anti-malware law (CASL) are met. In another post, Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: how to assess them, I proposed a framework for assessing the regulations.…

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Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: defining commercial electronic message

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Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: jurisdictional overreach

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