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canada

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Chief Justice asks: will accuracy and fairness be casualties of the social media era?

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada gave a speech yesterday at Carleton University. In it she questioned whether fairness and accuracy might be lost in the world of blogging, tweeting and the use of social networks. She said the media is essential to building public trust in the administration of justice.

For those of you who follow copyright law reform developments on certain blogs and social media sources you might find her speech will resonate with you.

For fun, I have taken extracts of her speech reported in the Toronto Star and have substituted the words “administration of justice” with the words “copyright law”; “the judiciary” with “legislative process”; and “constitutional decision” with “copyright reform process”.…

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Redefining copyright in the digital era

Here is a copy of the article with the above title published in the January  20, 2012 edition of The Lawyers Weekly.

In early December, copyright lawyers from across the country descended on the Supreme Court to participate in a cluster of cases that may redefine the scope of copyright in the digital era.

The first case heard, ESA v. SOCAN, put the question directly to the court of how the bundle of rights set out in s. 3 of the Copyright Act ought to be construed in the case of downloads of files containing musical works. …

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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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Will it be illegal to recommend a dentist under Canada’s new anti-spam law (CASL)?

Over the holidays I got an email from one of my relatives visiting Toronto. She asked me to recommend a dental surgeon for an unexpected tooth extraction. She also asked me to refer her to other dentists to get additional recommendations. I sent her an email with a recommendation to get treatment from a dental surgeon who I encouraged her to see and also provided the name of a family dentist who could make other recommendations. My email included a link to a website of the clinic operated by the dental surgeon.…

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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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Canadian Patent Office allows Amazon.com’s “one-click” patent

Last month the Federal Court of Appeal issued its reasons in the Amazon.com “one-click” patent case. Since the Court of Appeal directed the Commissioner to revisit Amazon.com’s application, it was not clear whether or not the patent was eligible subject matter.[1] The decision of the Court of Appeal left many questions unanswered.

It appears that the Patent Office has now determined that Amazon.com’s patent application,  “Method and System For Placing A Purchase Order Via A Communication Network” (Canadian Patent Application No.…

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Canada is market for TPM trafficking and bittorrent indexing sites says USTR report

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets. In the review, the USTR identified markets that typify the problem of marketplaces that deal in goods and services that infringe on intellectual property rights and help to sustain global piracy and counterfeiting. Canada was listed in several of these markets.

According to the USTR “The scale and popularity of these markets can cause economic harm to U.S. and other IP right holders. …

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UK: “not practical” to adopt US fair use

The UK will not adopt US fair use. This was revealed in statements made by Baroness Wilcox, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills and John Alty, Chief Executive and Comptroller General, Intellectual Property Office, in testimony before the UK Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on November 15, 2011.

Here is a extract from the testimony.

Q219 Chair : At the time, there were assertions that companies such as Google would not start up in this country because of the UK copyright law.

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Copyright coming to the Supreme Court of Canada

The copyright bar and the Supreme Court are gearing up for two big days of copyright appeals. The five appeals are being heard back to back on December 6 and 7, 2011.

Earlier today the Court circulated the draft schedule for the arguments. It lists all the parties, the interveners, the lawyers involved, and the order in which the cases are going to be heard. It is going to be a very interesting two days for copyright in Canada.

The Court has published case summaries.…

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Barry Sookman
This site is about technology, copyright, artificial intelligence, and privacy law.