Daniel Kennedy is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Intellectual Property Theory course.

Like many words, “authorship” takes on distinct meaning in the realm of copyright law.  However, it may be difficult to divorce historical values associated with the term even when it is used in the legal realm.  In his article, “Copyright and Information Theory: Toward an Alternative Model of ‘Authorship’”, Alan L. Durham explores the paradigm of romantic authorship which he views as a persistent influence on modern American copyright doctrine.  The romantic model, in Durham’s view, tends to misrepresent the author as a wielder of self-generated, personal, and even “magical” creative power.  Thus, using the conceptual framework of information theory, Durham examines two alternative and more inclusive redefinitions of authorship. 

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Posted in Copyright, IP, Originality
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In a recent blog post, Judith Kirkpatrick discusses two British cases dealing with profile ownership on the social networking websites LinkedIn and Facebook [1].  According to Kirkpatrick, the decision in Hays Specialist Recruitment (Holding) Ltd. v. Ions suggests the conclusion that “your LinkedIn profile if used in the course of your employment might not belong to you but to your employer” [2].  Another blogger at Talent Technology Blog reaches a similar conclusion and expresses concern that bully tactics will be used by employers in the digital realm while many judges remain “[living] in the dark ages” [3].

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Posted in IP
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