Now, Why Didn’t I Think of That?

See the Globe & Mail’s recent article about why copyright is cool and sexy.

For something that’s still mostly speculation (both Michael and Howard acknowledge not yet having seen the actual contents of the upcoming copyright reform Bill), there has a remarkable outpouring of interest from numerous individuals on the issue of Canadian copyright reform, not the least of which is:

The Facebook group Fair Copyright for Canada which now […]

There hasn’t been a new posting on CopyrightWatch.ca for a while now, but they sure cracked me up with their posting just a bit ago Truth in trademarking.

Luckily, the Olympic and Paralypic Marks Act is not yet in force (as far as I’m aware), so I think we’re still safe to refer to […]

Howard Knopf has an interesting post today, entitled Canada’s Stronger Copyright law - a baker’s dozen examples, wherein he lists thirteen examples of why Canadian copyright law is much stronger than U.S. copyright law. My favourite is his number 3:

3. We pay a fortune to SOCAN for performances in countless bars, restaurants, retail […]

Just released via Google News, it appears that Access Copyright is suing retailer Staples/The Business Depot for copyright infringement, claiming $10 million in damages over unauthorized photocopying by store customers.

Access copyright is a Canadian copyright collective. Regular readers of my blog might remember my previous posting about Access Copyright’s superhero Captain […]

CTV.ca reports that an Australian man was fined for pirating “The Simpsons Movie” to the Internet after recording it on his cell phone. His fine was about US$888.00 (or roughly $832.59 CAD).

The man’s defence lawyer was quoted as saying:

“It would appear that this young man had the sophistication of a dead fish, … I […]

The Court, a blog where Canadian scholars, practitioners and law students comment on recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, has posted a free video lecture by David Vaver, Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law, University of Oxford.

The video lecture assesses how the Supreme Court is interpreting Canada’s intellectual property […]

Got it first on Thursday from Eugene Meehan’s Supreme Court of Canada L@wLetter (I do love those weekly newletters!).

Then Howard Knopf (who was involved in the case), Michael Geist and David Canton all blogged about it.

Not much left for me to say, other than maybe providing the obligatory link to the Supreme Court of Canada’s […]

The Copyright Board of Canada is now of the view that MP3 music players, such as Apple’s iPod and Trekstor’s stylish Vibez, are to be considered a “recording medium” with a primary purpose to record and play music. See the Board’s July 19, 2007 decision here in PDF .

Back in 2004, in […]

A number of changes to Canadian intellectual property regulations took effect yesterday (Saturday, June 2, 2007).

Amendments to the Patent Rules, the Trade-marks Regulations, the Industrial Design Regulations, the Integrated Circuit Topography Regulations, and the Copyright Regulations were previously published in the Canada Gazette on May 16, 2007. All of these amendments, except […]

The Globe and Mail has an interesting story today, entitled U.S. activist takes on Syncrude, about how Liz Moore, an 85-year-old Colorado grandmother, created a website that portrays the energy company in an unflattering light over the environmental costs of the tar sands.

Apparently Ms. Moore took various photographs at Syncrude’s operation (near […]

Via Michael Geist, and further to my earlier post, the controversial Captain Copyright website has now been taken offline - replaced with a single static page.

Captain Copyright gives thanks to those who provided critical feedback and notes that it has secured a number experts and educators to serve on an advisory panel, to review […]

In a recent decision by Mr. Justice von Finckenstein, in the case of Ayngaran International Video & Audio Inc. v. Universal DVD Inc., the Federal Court vacated an Anton Pillar Order on both procedural issues and substantive grounds. The case involves alleged copyright infringement of a number of Tamil language films on DVDs.

Anton Pillar Order:

An […]

An email from Captain Copyright this morning informed me that Access Copyright has posted a response to the various criticisms it has received about the Captain Copyright website (on Access Copyright’s main website).

In the response, Access Copyright states that it takes all of the feedback and comments (whether positive or negative) seriously, that it has […]

The Canadian Library Association, Canada’s largest national library association which represents about 57,000 library workers, has recently sent an open letter (pdf version) to Access Copyright, basically condemning its Captain Copyright website initiative.

The CLA is concerned about Captain Copyright’s lack of balance as it advocates for copyright awareness, the site’s web linking policy and the […]