The UK High Court appears likely to order UK ISPs to block the notorious BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay. In the just released opinion in the Dramatico Entertainment Ltd & Ors v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd & Ors [2012] EWHC 268 (Ch) (20 February 2012) case, Justice Arnold ruled that users of the site as well as its operators infringe copyright. Users who download copies of sound recordings violate the right of reproduction. Users who make sound recordings available for downloading make them available to the public and are liable for communicating the sound recordings to the public. The Pirate Bay is liable for authorizing the infringement of its users. It is also liable for infringement based on the accessorial liability theories of joint infringement and inducement.
Archive for the ‘conflicts of law’ category
Keeping The Pirate Bays at Bay
February 22nd, 2012Posted in C-11, Copyright, Piracy, Reproduction, SOPA, WIPO Treaties, authorization, blocking orders, communication to the public, conflicts of law, copyright reform, jurisdiction, making available right
Tags: bittorrent blocking orders C-11 copyright infringement PIPA sookman SOPA the Pirate Bay UK Hight Court
Do linking sites infringe copyright?
January 18th, 2012A UK judged ruled on Friday that the 23 year operator of the TVShack.net linking website could be extradited to the US to face a trial for alleged criminal copyright infringement. In rendering the decision the UK court made some important findings about the scope of UK copyright law. They included the ruling that organizing and providing hyperlinks to infringing content from a linking website can infringe the making available right.
Copyright law 2011 –the year in review in Canada and around the world
January 13th, 2012Yesterday, 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
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
Technological change and copyright
September 6th, 2011I gave a talk earlier today at Osgoode to the students enrolled in Osgoode’s IP Intensive Program. The topic focused on the impacts of technological change on copyright. My slides are set out below.
Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing, Reproduction, Robertson case, authorization, communication to the public, conflicts of law, copyright reform, fair dealing for education, iiNet case, storage lockers
Tags: authorization barry sookman canada Copyright iinet Robertson SOCAN Tariff 22 technological change
UK copyright caselaw update: the Lucasfilm, BT, ITV and Meltwater cases
August 1st, 2011Is a stormtrooper’s helmet a sculpture protected by copyright? Can a defendant living in the UK be sued for infringing the US Copyright Act in the UK? Can an ISP be forced to block a foreign website whose services are being used to download infringing TV programmes and movies? Does Internet streaming of television programming without permission infringe the communication to the public right? Does temporary buffering to deliver streams of film and TV programming infringe the reproduction right? Does offering an online news clipping service which involves copying headlines and short extracts of articles infringe copyright? Can such a service rely on a fair dealing defense?
Developments in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law (2010-2011)
June 15th, 2011Here are the slides used in my presentation to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group earlier today, The Year in Review: Developments in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law (2010-2011). It covers significant developements since my talk last spring.
The slides include a summary of the following cases and statutory materials:
Privacy:
Cite Cards Canada Inc. v. Pleasance, 2011 ONCA 3
Leon’s Furniture Limited v. Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2011 ABCA 94
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 2010 FC 736
Nammo v. TransUnion of Canada Inc., 2010 FC 1284
Posted in Amazon, Computer Misuse, Copyright, E-commerce, Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), FISA, FIWSA, Fair Dealing, Google Book Scanning, ISP Liability, IT Contracts, Limitations of liability, Outsourcing, Patents, Piracy, Presentations, Privacy, Trade Marks, authorization, business method patents, communication to the public, conflicts of law, conflicts of laws, contributory infringement, data protection, idea expression dichotomy, iiNet case, intellectual property, p2p piracy, spam
Tags: barry sookman class actions Copyright data protection E-commerce google book project intellectual property IT Contracts Limitations of liability Patents Privacy trade-marks
Google’s search service exonerated from copyright liability by a French court
January 31st, 2011When Google searches the web and indexes and caches and makes thumbnail copies of visual works available to the public, is it liable for copyright infringement? Also, which country’s copyright laws apply to determining Google’s liability? Is it US law where much of the indexing and caching take place and from where Google transmits thumbnails and links to original works of art to the public? Or is it the place where the thumbnails are viewed (or communicated to)?
These issues were considered by the Paris Court of Appeal in the La société Des Auteurs des Arts Visuels et de L’image Fixe Visual Auteurs (SAIF) v Google France S.A.R.L. and Google Inc case decided last week.
This site is published by Barry Sookman personally. It is not affiliated with McCarthy Tétrault or any of its clients. Full bio 