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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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France Animation v Robinson – a case comment

January 2nd, 2012

I just finished reading the fascinating reasons delivered by the Quebec Court of Appeal in the France Animation v Robinson, 2011 QCCA 1361 case. The main issue in the appeal was whether sketches and characters of the proposed TV series Robinson curiosity were infringed by the series Robinson sucro. The trial judge found infringement and the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment, in part.

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Posted in Copyright, Reproduction, human rights, idea expression dichotomy, infringment

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Supreme Court denies leave in satellite radio copyright case

October 21st, 2011

Yesterday the Supreme Court denied CSI’s motion for leave to appeal in the CSI v Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. case. The result leaves standing the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in Sirius Canada Inc. v. CMRRA/SODRAC Inc., 2010 FCA 348. This decision dismissed two judicial review applications from the Copyright Board’s decision released in April, 2009.

The decision of the Federal Court of Appeal contained several important copyright rulings. In particular the Court ruled that:

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Posted in Copyright, Reproduction, authorization, communication to the public

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Website terms, copyright used to shut down real estate data scraping in Century 21 v Rogers

September 8th, 2011

You can always tell when you are about to read a good case by its opening paragraph. The decision of the BC Supreme Court in Century 21 Canada Limited Partnership v. Rogers Communications Inc., 2011 BCSC 1196  doesn’t disappoint. It begins as follows:

The ability of the law to adapt is part of its strength. Technological innovation tests that resilience. This case considers that ability as claims for breach of contract, trespass to chattels and copyright infringement meet the Internet.  At the root of this lawsuit is the legitimacy of indexing publically accessible websites.

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing, Reproduction, contracts, implied licenses, shrink wrap license, web wrap agreement

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Technological change and copyright

September 6th, 2011

I 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.

Sookman osgoode technology_focus_internet_and_it.ppt

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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

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Are music storage lockers legal in the US?

August 24th, 2011

Earlier this week, a US District Court released an import decision on the legality of music lockers services under US law. In the Capital Records , Inc v MP3Tunes, LLC, 2011 WL 3667335 (S.D.N.Y., Aug 22, 2011) case, the court ruled that MP3Tunes was liable for contributory infringement by providing storage locker services to its users when it knew that they had unlawfully downloaded copyright protected materials into the lockers. MP3Tunes was found liable because it allowed users to continue to store and access songs listed in valid copyright takedown notices. In the summary judgment motions ruled on, the court also held that MP3Tunes was not liable for allowing users to continue to store and access songs it was not required to remove under the DMCA.

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Posted in Copyright, Piracy, Reproduction, p2p piracy, storage lockers

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Is Google News legal?

May 17th, 2011

Earlier this month a Belgium appellant court released an important decision finding Google liable for copyright infringement by offering its Google News service to subscribers in Belgium at the Google.be and Google.com websites. The decision in Google Inc v Copiepresse et al, Brussels Court of Appeal (9th Chamber) May 5, 2011 suggests that services such as Google News cannot be legally offered in many countries around the world even from servers located in North America. The case is thus a very important one.

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Posted in Copyright, Reproduction, berne three step test, communication to the public, conflicts of laws, implied licenses

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Google’s search service exonerated from copyright liability by a French court

January 31st, 2011

When 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.

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Posted in Articles, Copyright, Reproduction, conflicts of law, public perofmance

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Robertson 2 copyright class action settles

January 18th, 2011

The lawyers for Heather Robertson have announced the settlement of the “Robertson 2” class action copyright case. The freelance authors reached a tentative settlement worth more than $5 million with the publisher defendants which include the Toronto Star, Rogers Publishing Limited, CEDROM-SNi Inc., and ProQuest Information and Learning LLC.

The suit alleged that the defendants infringed on the copyrights of the freelance writers by disseminating their articles online without their consent.

There will be a hearing in the Ontario Superior Court on April 11 for the court to consider whether to approve the settlement.

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Posted in Copyright, Reproduction, Robertson case, implied licenses

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