The Public Domain: IP, Culture, and Democracy

Jonathan MacKenzie is an LLM candidate at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Intellectual Property Theory course. Since its first significant formal uses - in the 1896 decision of Singer v. June and the United States' 1909 Copyright Act - the term "public domain" has become a key component of the North American IP legal regime. […]

"Fairey Use" in the Courts: The Battle Over the Obama "Hope" Poster

Peter Waldkirch is a second year LL.B. student at the University of Ottawa. The copyright infringement lawsuit centering around the iconic Obama “Hope” image recently took a strange turn. On one side is the controversial artist Shepard Fairey, who produced the famous poster; on the other is the Associated Press, who claims ownership of the […]