Archive for the ‘Copyright’ category

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ACTA progress announced with plans to release final draft in September

August 23rd, 2010

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a Statement on the recent ACTA negotiations.The Statement followed the conclusion of the 10th round of negotiations on the ACTA held in Washington, D.C. from 16 – 20 August 2010.

The Statement reported on the progress of the talks which are slated to conclude following meetings in Japan this September. It also served to allay fears about the proposed contents of the treaty by again re-affirming what the treaty will not extend to.

The Statement said the following in this regard:

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Posted in ACTA, Copyright, Piracy, TPMs, p2p piracy

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Toronto Star says proposed exception for education in C-32 needs rethinking

August 14th, 2010

The Toronto Star published an editorial today on C-32.  In it the Star expressed concern over the proposed inclusion of education as a new fair dealing allowable purpose exception. According to the Star:

Writers and publishers are worried that a broad interpretation of “education” could lead to rampant copying of textbooks, instructional manuals and even novels. Would a school board be allowed to buy just one copy of a new textbook and copy it for all its students? Would universities be allowed to copy bits and pieces of 20 different books to compile reading material on a certain subject for their students? Indeed, would a monthly book club be considered an “educational” activity and be allowed to copy novels on its reading list?

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing, Fair Use, c-32

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SOCAN seeks leave to Supreme Court on whether an online preview is a fair dealing

August 13th, 2010

SOCAN has filed a motion for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in the Tariff 22 case. It is arguing that the Federal Court of Appeal erred in not reversing the Copyright Board which had held that offering an online preview can be a fair dealing. The Application Record in the leave motion is below.
SOCAN Application Record in Tariff 22 Case (PUBLIC)

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing

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“Musicians have rights, too”, Maia Davies

August 13th, 2010

Yesterday, Maia Davies, a musician, vocalist and songwriter with the musical group Ladies of the Canyon, published an op-ed in the MONTREAL GAZETTE and EDMONTON jOURNAL. Titled “musicians have rights, too”, Maia Davies described how illegal downloading has “been a catastrophe” and why supporting C-32 to amend the Copyright Act including its provisions which protect technological measures is so important. She wrote, in part:

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Posted in Copyright, copyright reform

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Property and Progress made possible by respecting copyrights

August 5th, 2010

Professor Alina Ng,  Assistant Professor of Law at the Mississippi College School of Law, recently published an abstract of a paper being written that argues that the protection of individual rights in literary and artistic works – besides encouraging creativity for progress – also brings into the copyright system a normative order for social conduct that advances society towards the goal of progress. The abstract of the paper, Property and Progress, summarizes the paper as follows:

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MGE v GE-what did the 5th Circuit decide about the scope of the DMCA TPM provisions and was it right?

July 29th, 2010

Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit released a controversial decision interpreting Section 1201(a) of the DMCA in MGE UPS Inc v GE Consumer and Industrial, Inc. 2010 WL 2820006 (5th Cir.2010). Prof. Geist has suggested that the case decided that the “DMCA is limited to guarding access controls only to the extent that circumvention would violate the copyright rights of the copyright owner.” His summary of the case is neither accurate nor complete. Here’s why.

The MGE case

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing, Fair Use, TPMs, c-32, copyright reform

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Copyright Office Exempts Six Classes of Works from DMCA’s Access Control Anti-circumvention Prohibitions

July 27th, 2010

Yesterday, the Librarian of Congress announced the classes of works subject to an exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

Accompanying ruling was the Statement of the Librarian of Congress on the Anticircumvention Rulemaking, the Recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, and the Determination of the Librarian of Congress and Text of the Regulation (to be published in Federal Register).

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Posted in Copyright, TPMs, WIPO Treaties, wct, wppt

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Educational Tariff Certified by Copyright Board Upheld by Federal Court of Appeal

July 27th, 2010

The Federal Court of Appeal released an important decision on Friday ruling on the subject of fair dealing in the K-12 educational sector. At issue was whether the Copyright Board erred in holding that when teachers copy books and other copyright materials for classroom use such copying is not covered by the fair dealing exception for private study. The Court dismissed the judicial review application holding that the “Board laid out the appropriate test from CCH and, through clear and comprehensible reasons, came to a justifiable conclusion. I see no reviewable error in respect of this issue.”

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing

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Copyright doesn’t protect dolls with a “bratty look”

July 24th, 2010

On Friday the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision involving the copyright litigation between Mattel and MGA Entertainment over copyright in Barbie. The appeal decision held, among other things, that given the limited scope for originality involved in creating a particular genre of dolls that the many resemblances between Barbie and Bratz did not result in copying of copyright protected subject matter.

The case underlines basic principles of copyright law that copyright cannot protect ideas. In this case, copyright cannot protect the ideas behind “bratty dolls” or “dolls sporting trendy clothing”. In the words of the Court:

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Study shows 97% of torrents relate to infringing copyright content

July 23rd, 2010

A study by the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory  (ICSL) has found that over 97% of .torrent files that relate to copyright works shared over BitTorrent networks relate to infringing content.

The ICSL found that 0.3% of the files sampled were confirmed as being non-infringing (True Negatives); 89% were confirmed as being infringing (True Positives); 1.6% were ambiguous where they could not determine if they were infringing or not, and .91% related to pornographic torrents. Of the torrents in the top three categories (Movies, Music and TV shows), there were no legal torrents in the sample. According to the report:

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Posted in Copyright, Piracy, isohunt, p2p piracy

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