Barry Sookman

Generative AI: my keynote speech on the challenges and legal issues at ITechLawGenerative AI: my keynote speech on the challenges and legal issues at ITechLaw

May 28, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

I was delighted to have had the opportunity to discuss the challenges and legal issues associated with generative AI at the 2023 World Technology Law Conference in Toronto. I gave the keynote speech which was followed by presentations showing various uses of generative AI by Kritika Bharadwaj (Day Pitney LLP, United States), Matt Hervey (Gowling WLG, United Kingdom), Ideshini Naidoo (Thomson Reuters, Canada), and Stephen Henderson (Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, Canada).

The ITechLaw Association meeting had two other good sessions on generative AI.…

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Contracting for tech under the AI provisions of CPPA, AIDA and Law 25Contracting for tech under the AI provisions of CPPA, AIDA and Law 25

May 14, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

I had the pleasure to speak at the McCarthy Tetrault AI Summit along with my colleague Mike Scherman. The AI summit was attended by over 1,000 McCarthy Clients eager to hear about AI legal and regulation issues.

Mike and I spoke on the topic of Contracting for tech under the AI provisions of CPPA, AIDA and Law 25. We stressed the importance of including present and future AI regulatory issues in the tech contracting process.

Our slides can be accessed below.…

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ALAI CANADA – ANNUAL MID-YEAR REVIEW OF CANADIAN COPYRIGHT LAW DEVELOPMENTSALAI CANADA – ANNUAL MID-YEAR REVIEW OF CANADIAN COPYRIGHT LAW DEVELOPMENTS

May 4, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

I was very pleased to give a presentation to ALAI Canada on developments in Canadian copyright law (from May 2022-May 2023). Last year’s Annual Copyright Review can be accessed here.

These were the cases I talked about.

IMS Incorporated v. Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, 2023 FCA 70
Audax Architecture Inc. v. McCuaig, 2022 FC 1747
Whitehall Entertainment Incorporated v. Kafka Pictures Inc., 2022 BCPC 184
Fox Restaurant Concepts LLC v. 43 North Restaurant Group Inc., 2022 FC 1149
Tremblay v.…

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Google liable for $500,000 in damages for not delisting defamatory information: A.B. v GoogleGoogle liable for $500,000 in damages for not delisting defamatory information: A.B. v Google

May 1, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

In what has become a series of worldwide struggles against Google by persons whose reputations have been ruined by defamatory posts which Google refuses to de-list from its search engines, a Quebec man was awarded $500,000 in moral damages and a de-listing injunction against Google for breach of his rights under the Quebec Civil Code. The battle which started approximately 16 years ago and which ended after more than 6 years of litigation is reported in the case, A.B. c. Google, 2023 QCCS 1167.…

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Dynamic Copyright Blocking Orders: My Fordham TalkDynamic Copyright Blocking Orders: My Fordham Talk

April 13, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

I had the pleasure to speak earlier today at the Fordham 30th Annual Intellectual Property & Policy Conference in New York. My topic was IP & Live Content Piracy in Sports. The focus was on the availability of copyright dynamic blocking orders in Canada and elsewhere.

I was honored to participate along with the moderator Michele Woods (WIPO) and other speakers and panelists, Julian Waiblinger (Nordemann), Joshua Graubart (Romano Law), Miruna Herovanu ( ACT), and Trevor Cook (Bird & Bird). They focused on the challenges and availability of dynamic blocking orders in the EU and United Kingdom.…

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AIDA Companion Document: overview and questionsAIDA Companion Document: overview and questions

April 10, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

ISED released a document purporting to explain the purposes and scope of AIDA and how the regulations will be rolled out. The long expected document, The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA): Companion Document was released in anticipation of debates about AIDA in Parliament. The Companion Document is meant to provide assurances about AIDA, to quell the considerable unease among MPs and members of the public that AIDI is nothing but a shell of a bill with no details of what AI systems it will apply to and how it will regulate them. …

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Cloud computing services not subject to PST says BC court: Hootsuite Inc. v British Columbia (Finance)Cloud computing services not subject to PST says BC court: Hootsuite Inc. v British Columbia (Finance)

March 20, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

Are cloud computing services subject to provincial sales tax? According to a recent decision of the BC Supreme Court in Hootsuite Inc. v British Columbia (Finance), 2023 BCSC 358 the cloud computing services AWS Support, EC2 and S3, and AWS direct connect are not subject to provincial sales tax under the Provincial Sales Tax Act, S.B.C. 2012, c. 35 [PSTA]. In short, these services are not taxable as, depending on the service, they are not the purchase of software programs, they constitute the purchase of on-demand infrastructure (IaaS), the service does not contain a software program, the software program is not used in BC, the service is not used in BC, or the service is otherwise exempt under incidental exemptions in the PSTA.…

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Trade secrets: a webinar for NGen and other Canadian superclustersTrade secrets: a webinar for NGen and other Canadian superclusters

March 9, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

I had the pleasure earlier today to participate in a webinar on the protection of trade secrets. The webinar was provided to some of Canada’s leading superclusters and their partners such as NGen, Protein Industries Canada, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, and the Digital Technology Supercluster.

The slides from my talk can be accessed at the link below.…

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Fiduciary duties of Bitcoin Developers: Tulip Trading v Bitcoin AssociationFiduciary duties of Bitcoin Developers: Tulip Trading v Bitcoin Association

February 20, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

Do the developers of Bitcoin code owe fiduciary duties to an owner of that cryptocurrency to help the owner retrieve lost or inaccessible bitcoin after the owner’s private key has been hacked? They might ruled the U.K. Court of Appeal in Tulip Trading Limited v Bitcoin Association For BSV & Ors [2023] EWCA Civ 83 (03 February 2023), a decision that overturned a lower court judge who ruled there was no basis to obtain such relief.

While the decision of the Court of Appeal provides Tulip, the owner who allegedly lost $4 billion in bitcoin, with a potential remedy, what is surprising is that Tulip relied principally on direct causes of action against the developers, being fiduciary duty and a duty of care in tort.…

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Bitcoin file format not protected by copyright: Wright v BTC CoreBitcoin file format not protected by copyright: Wright v BTC Core

February 13, 2023 Barry Sookman 0 Comments

Technologies associated with blockchains have raised many novel issues of law. One of the issues is whether copyright is capable of subsisting in file formats used in the Bitcoin System. This issue was raised in the recent U.K. case, Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors [2023] EWHC 222 (Ch) (07 February 2023). In what can only be described as a technical question of copyright law, Justice Mellor concluded that copyright did not exist in the file format because the fixation requirement for copyright subsistence was not met.…

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