copyright infringement Archives

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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Aereo infringes says international associations and copyright scholars to SCOTUS

Earlier today, a number of international and foreign associations and copyright scholars filed an Amicus brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in the ABC, Inc. et al v. Aereo, Inc case. The brief brings to the attention of the SCOTUS a number of international treaties and trade agreements respecting copyright that impose obligations on the United States to provide copyright holders with a broad technologically neutral communication to the public right that would cover all aspects of Aereo’s service and make its service infringing.…

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When hyperlinks infringe copyright: Svensson v Retriever Sverige

Earlier today, the CJEU released an important decision on whether the making available right gives copyright holders a right to authorize the use of hyperlinks to copyright content. In Case C-466/12 Svensson v Retriever Sverige AB, (13 February 2014) the CJEU ruled that an ordinary “clickable” hyperlink makes a work available to the public. However, if the link is to a publically available portion of a website used by the rights holder to make work available to the same public as the link, it is not made available to a new public and the right is not infringed.…

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Robinson v Cinar in the Supreme Court

In the last decade, the Supreme Court of Canada has canvassed many important issues in copyright law including the scope of the rights of reproduction and authorization, what makes a work original, and how to apply the fair dealing defense. In its decision released yesterday in Cinar Corporation v. Robinson, 2013 SCC 73, a unanimous Supreme Court released an important precedent dealing with many other core areas of copyright including the framework for how to assess if a “substantial part” of a work has been reproduced, the assessment of damages for infringement including accounting of profits, non-pecuniary damages and punitive damages, the use of experts in a copyright case, the vicarious liability of directors for infringement, and whether copyright is protected by the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms.…

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