human rights Archives

Criminal copyright convictions of The Pirate Bay operators “necessity in democratic society” says human rights court

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the convictions of Fredrik NEIJ and Peter SUNDE KOLMISOPPI, operators of The Pirate Bay bittorrent site did not violate Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court found that the convictions of the defendants for criminal copyright infringement did not violate their rights to freedom of expression as the convictions and jail sentences imposed by Sweden’s Court of Appeal was “necessary in a democratic society” within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention.…

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France Animation v Robinson – a case comment

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.

The case is a gold mine for copyright lawyers. It canvasses many copyright issues including the application of the standard of originality to partially completed works, the test for infringement when there has been substantial alterations and improvements to the original work, the relevance of expert evidence in copyright cases in light of the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Masterpiece Inc.…

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Is graduated response necessary to protect human rights from online copyright infringement?

Last week, the Irish High Court released an important decision in the EMI Records & Ors -v- Eircom Ltd , [2010] IEHC 108 case. The court held that a settlement agreement between an Irish ISP, Eircom, and owners of copyright protected sound recordings and videos to implement a voluntary graduated response system was compatible with Irish data protection legislation. The ruling by Justice Charleton delivered on 16th April, 2010, is noteworthy not only because it found that collecting and using IP addresses for the purposes of sending out graduated response notices to subscribers does not violate data protection legislation.…

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