copyright infringement Archives

Copyright Infringement and AI: Insights from Getty v Stability AI

In a landmark decision released yesterday in Getty Images (US) Inc v Stability AI Limited [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch), a United Kingdom court ruled that Stability AI was not liable for secondary copyright infringement by importing or distributing models that were partly trained using images allegedly owned or exclusively licensed by Getty. Central to the decision was the finding of Justice Joanna Smith that Stability AI’s trained models did not store copies of Getty images as required by the U.K. Copyright, Designs, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the “CDPA”), and hence were not infringing copies, even though they may have been trained without copyright holder authorization.…

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AI Visual Effects and Copyright Infringement

Does it infringe copyright to make an unauthorized copy of artwork and to use that as a base image for the creation of a commercial product that is substantially similar to the original work using an AI tool to do minor visual editing to produce the commercial product? Yes, according to a recent decision of the Beijing Tongzhou Court.

In the case, individuals were convicted of criminal copyright infringement when they used an AI tool, described as a “picture-to-picture’ method to generate effects”, to copy other peoples works of art making only minor modifications to create puzzle pieces for a jigsaw puzzle commercial product.…

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Understanding subscription licenses, fair dealing and legal protection for TPMs in Canada: A critical commentary of the Blacklock’s Reporter Parks Canada decision

The Federal Court issued another troubling copyright decision involving Blacklock’s Reporter (BR) in the recent case, 1395804 Ontario Ltd, operating as Blacklock’s Reporter v AG Canada, 2024 FC 829. In reasons that are very difficult to follow and untangle, Justice Roy of the Federal Court held that Parks Canada did not infringe copyright or breach the Copyright Act’s legal protection of technological protection measures by circulating copies of articles and passwords to locked articles published by BR.

The Blacklock’s Reporter decision is riddled with mistakes.…

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OpenAI comes out swinging in motions to dismiss copyright class action claims

OpenAI and Meta came out swinging in defense of several suits claiming their AI products infringe copyright and other rights. While these defendants are leaving to another day the legality of using copyright books for training their AI systems, they have clearly telegraphed the thrust of their defenses.

In OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the Tremblay class action, usurpingly, it highlights the fair use defense.

At the heart of Plaintiffs’ Complaints are copyright claims. Those claims, however, misconceive the scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence.

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Website blocking proposal good policy

CANADALAND recently reported (Inside Bell’s Push To End Net Neutrality In Canada) that a coalition of Canadian companies is considering a proposal to have Canada’s telecommunications and broadcast regulator, the CRTC, establish a regime to block egregious copyright infringing websites.

The proposal is long overdue and, if adopted, would modernize Canada’s laws relating to Internet piracy and bring them into line with those of many of our trading partners. The proposal is not an attack on net neutrality; rather it is an efficient means of stopping content theft.…

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Alleged set-top box pirates lose Canadian Federal Court appeal

In a decision that should not surprise anyone, the distributors of set top boxes that were specifically adapted to enable purchasers to stream and download infringing copies of programs made available by Bell, Bell Expressvu, Rogers, and Videotron lost their appeal of an injunction granted this summer by Justice Tremblay-Lamer in Bell Canada v ITVBOX.NET 2016 FC 612. (summarized here).

The appellants didn’t appeal the findings of the court that there was a strong case of infringement. Rather, they challenged the court’s findings that broadcast distribution undertakings would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction was not granted.…

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By-passing paywall and circumventing TPM sinks fair dealing defense: Blacklock’s Reporter v CVA

Does by-passing a subscription paywall to access a news article violate the new prohibitions in the Copyright Act that make it an infringement to circumvent a technological protection measure (TPM)? Yes, according to a decision just released by an Ontario court in 395804 Ontario Limited (Blacklock’s Reporter) v Canadian Vintners Association, 2015 CanLII 65885 (ON SCSM). Can a defendant rely on the new fair dealing defense for education to excuse the copying if the defendant illegally accessed the work by circumventing a TPM to do so?…

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Proving copyright infringement: John Kaldor Fabricmaker v Lee Ann Fashions

To prove copyright infringement, the claimant has the onus of proving two things: first the alleged infringer created his or her work by copying from the copyright owner’s work (copying in fact); second, that all or a substantial part of the original work was copied (illicit copying). The analytical steps in each inquiry have been considered in numerous cases. For example, the Supreme Court of Canada reviewed the steps a Canadian court should follow in establishing illicit copying in a “altered copying” case in Cinar Corporation v.…

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Mihály Ficsor on Svensson and communications to the public

The Svensson opinion of the CJEU has gained considerable attention. The focus has primarily been on the controversial topic of whether hyperlinks to a work on the Internet should be considered as making the work available and hence be part of the author’s right of communication to the public. However, the opinion also further extends precedents of the CJEU how to determine whether communications are “to the public”. In a seminal paper, Dr. Ficsor the former Deputy Director General of WIPO carefully examines these precedents and points out errors in the opinions.…

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Blocking orders against ISPs legal in the EU: UPC Telekabel Wien

European courts have ordered ISPs to block access to pirate file sharing sites in other countries for years. The jurisdiction for doing so is Article 8(3) of the EU Copyright Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001) which is transposed into the laws of EU Member States. The courts have considered these orders to represent a reasonable balance between the interests of copyright holders, intermediaries, and end users. See, Keeping The Pirate Bays at Bay.…

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