Posts Tagged ‘canada’

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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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Redefining copyright in the digital era

January 29th, 2012

Here is a copy of the article with the above title published in the January  20, 2012 edition of The Lawyers Weekly.

In early December, copyright lawyers from across the country descended on the Supreme Court to participate in a cluster of cases that may redefine the scope of copyright in the digital era.

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Posted in Copyright, Fair Dealing, communication to the public, fair dealing for education, infringment, intellectual property, public perofmance

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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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Will it be illegal to recommend a dentist under Canada’s new anti-spam law (CASL)?

January 3rd, 2012

Over the holidays I got an email from one of my relatives visiting Toronto. She asked me to recommend a dental surgeon for an unexpected tooth extraction. She also asked me to refer her to other dentists to get additional recommendations. I sent her an email with a recommendation to get treatment from a dental surgeon who I encouraged her to see and also provided the name of a family dentist who could make other recommendations. My email included a link to a website of the clinic operated by the dental surgeon. My wife sent a similar email when I told her my relative was looking for a dentist. Later that day I started wondering whether responding to this type of inquiry would be legal or illegal under Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL), once it is proclaimed into force.

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Posted in Bill C-28, CASL, E-commerce, ECPA, FISA, FIWSA, Free Speech, electronic records production, malware, spam, spyware

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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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Canadian Patent Office allows Amazon.com’s “one-click” patent

December 31st, 2011

Last month the Federal Court of Appeal issued its reasons in the Amazon.com “one-click” patent case. Since the Court of Appeal directed the Commissioner to revisit Amazon.com’s application, it was not clear whether or not the patent was eligible subject matter.[1] The decision of the Court of Appeal left many questions unanswered.

It appears that the Patent Office has now determined that Amazon.com’s patent application,  “Method and System For Placing A Purchase Order Via A Communication Network” (Canadian Patent Application No. 2,246,933), is eligible subject matter. Patent Office records show that following an amendment made on December 22, 2011 a Notice of Allowance was issued on December 23, 2011. The records also show that the Final Fee was paid on December 28, 2011.

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Posted in Amazon, Patents, Statutory Subject Matter, business method patents

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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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UK: “not practical” to adopt US fair use

December 9th, 2011

The UK will not adopt US fair use. This was revealed in statements made by Baroness Wilcox, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills and John Alty, Chief Executive and Comptroller General, Intellectual Property Office, in testimony before the UK Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on November 15, 2011.

Here is a extract from the testimony.

Q219 Chair : At the time, there were assertions that companies such as Google would not start up in this country because of the UK copyright law. Do you still hold that theory now and will Government policy reflect that or accommodate Google?

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Posted in C-11, Copyright, Fair Dealing, Fair Use, fair dealing for education

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Copyright coming to the Supreme Court of Canada

November 25th, 2011

The copyright bar and the Supreme Court are gearing up for two big days of copyright appeals. The five appeals are being heard back to back on December 6 and 7, 2011.

Earlier today the Court circulated the draft schedule for the arguments. It lists all the parties, the interveners, the lawyers involved, and the order in which the cases are going to be heard. It is going to be a very interesting two days for copyright in Canada.

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Posted in Copyright

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