Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

In this digital era where authors and creators are scrambling to regain a hold on the copyright in their works, Professor Giuseppina D’Agostino’s new book, Copyright, Contracts, Creators: New Media, New Rules, is a timely and compelling contribution to the world of copyright literature. Although creators in the music or film industries and the like have often taken the limelight when it comes to copyright discourse, D’Agostino’s book focuses on the oft-forgotten but equally important freelance writer. Her book carefully documents the history of copyright laws in relation to freelance writers and assesses the efficiency of those laws to address copyright contracting in the digital era. Ultimately, she argues that the copyright laws in the UK and other countries such as Canada and the US do not sufficiently address copyright contract issues, a central concern to freelancers, and are inadequate to resolve the ambiguity of new uses provided by advances in technology.

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Posted in Contracts, Copyright, copyright reform, Internet, Ownership
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Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has begun sending letters to American universities and colleges notifying them that the Higher Education Opportunity Act requirements for combating piracy are already in effect and that the MPAA will be sending warning notices of any copyright infringement of MPAA material on their campuses.

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Posted in Copyright, Infringement, Internet Sharing, Movies
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Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

This past Friday, Viacom submitted its long-awaited appeal to the New York District Court decision in favour of YouTube issued earlier this year in June. Reports state that the 72 page appeal contends that Judge Stanton erred in affording YouTube the DMCA’s safe habour provision because its founders had aggressively encouraged piracy to expand its audience in a ‘get rich quick’ strategy, which panned out favourably for the founders when Google bought YouTube four years ago for $1.76 billion. Viacom argues that if the district court’s ruling is allowed to stand, it would “severely impair, if not completely destroy, the value of many copyrighted creations”. Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, brought on board for Viacom’s case, stated: “It’s as if to say, well we’ve stopped robbing banks, so let’s just forget the whole thing and move on. It is exceedingly important in this era of intellectual property and new creative endeavors that we continue to respect what people create.”

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Posted in Copyright, Infringement, Internet, Internet Sharing, Movies, Technology
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Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Web TV is the new place to be, so it seems. Google is currently in talks with Filmyard Holdings to license the digital rights to Miramax Film’s extensive repertoire. The negotiation efforts are in the hopes of bolstering its online services such as YouTube and Google TV into a “Web destination for longer form content” to compete for viewers and advertisers with other online services, such as Netflix, Apple TV, and Hulu. Filmyard Holdings LLC is currently finalizing the $660 million purchase of the Miramax library from Disney, a deal confirmed back in July 2010. The Miramax library includes over 700 films, including Academy Award winners such as “Chicago” and “Shakespeare in Love”.

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Posted in Innovation, Internet, Movies
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