Archive for the ‘copyright reform’ category

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P2P file sharing hurts music sales in Canada, study finds

February 2nd, 2012

Does P2P file sharing negatively affect legitimate music purchases in Canada? Does the availability of music for downloading from illegitimate P2P sources act as a substitute for legitimate music purchases? Would stronger copyright laws increase music purchases in Canada? Would it also increase artist incomes, industry employment and tax revenues in Canada?

The answers to all of these questions is yes according to a recent study published by Dr George Barker, the Director, Centre of Law and Economics, at ANU College of Law, Australian National University. What’s more, the study was done based on survey evidence conducted by Decima Research on behalf of Industry Canada.

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, Graduated Response, blocking orders, copyright reform

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

February 1st, 2012

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.

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Posted in Copyright, copyright reform

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

January 13th, 2012

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. Newton 2011 SCC 47

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, Counterfeiting, Fair Dealing, Fair Use, Google Book Scanning, Internet defamation, Piracy, Presentations, Reproduction, Robertson case, authorization, communication to the public, conflicts of law, copyright reform, cyberlockers, fair dealing for education, human rights, hyperlinking liability, iiNet case, infringment, international law, jurisdiction, statutory damages, storage lockers

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Cyberlockers, social media sites and copyright liability

January 9th, 2012

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 myVidster (see here also) 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 recently Veoh Networks were more successful, at least so far.

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Posted in Copyright, DMCA safe harbor, ISP exceptions, Reproduction, copyright reform, cyberlockers, enablement, hosting liability, infringment

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

December 23rd, 2011

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.  In addition, products sold at these markets may pose possible health and safety risks to consumers.”

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, DRMs, Piracy, TPMs, c-32, copyright reform

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DNS blocking and filtering in the EU

December 14th, 2011

Crowell & Moring LLP, a law firm with offices in the US, Brussels and the UK released a white paper that describes the legal mechanisms available to copyright holders in the EU to prevent ISP systems from being used for online file sharing. Published by the US based Copyright Alliance, the paper provides a summary of  European laws which have been used to grant injunctive relief to prevent online file sharing including injunctions requiring ISPs to implement DNS blocking. The paper also summarizes the recent ECJ Scarlet case which dealt with the power of EU courts to grant orders requiring ISPs to filter peer to peer traffic over their networks.

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, ISP Liability, blocking orders, copyright reform, p2p piracy

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ITCan Annual IP Update

October 28th, 2011

I had the pleasure of attending ITCan’s 15th Annual Conference yesterday. I moderated the Annual IP Update. I also gave the upate on copyright, pitch hitting for Casey Chisick who had to go to court. My slides are below

Sookman itcan annaul_ip_update_copyright_
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Posted in C-11, Copyright, Presentations, copyright reform

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Legislative Committee for C-11

October 28th, 2011

The Legislative Committee for C-11 will be:

Charlie Angus
Scott Armstrong
Tyrone Benskin
Peter Braid
Paul Calandra
Andrew Cash
Dean Del Mastro
Mike Lake
Phil McColeman
Rob Moore
Pierre Nantel
Geoff Regan

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Posted in C-11, copyright reform

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Hyperlinking and ISP liability clarified by Supreme Court in Crookes case

October 20th, 2011

The Supreme Court released its reasons in Crookes v. Newton 2011 SCC 47 yesterday. The legal issue in the appeal was whether hyperlinks that connect to allegedly defamatory material can be said to “publish” that material. The majority of the Court concluded that a hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as “publication” of the content to which it refers. Although the case dealt mainly with that issue the Court gave expansive reasons which will have significant impacts on future cases involving Internet defamation, freedom of expression on the Internet, and the liability of ISPs for dissemination of defamatory or infringing content.

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, Piracy, authorization, copyright reform, hyperlinking liability

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Copyright Bill C-11 gets second reading in the House of Commons

October 19th, 2011

Yesterday Bill C-11 was given second reading in the House of Commons. The statements by the Government and opposition parties can be found here.

For the record, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said the following in speaking about the Bill in the House:

Mr. Speaker, as you know, this is the second time that the government has introduced this bill. During the previous Parliament and for almost a year, the Copyright Modernization Act—then known as Bill C-32—was carefully examined and debated by parliamentarians and stakeholders.

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, Piracy, TPMs, WIPO Treaties, copyright reform

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