In this blog, I examine the ambit of protection given to personality rights in Canadian law. I focus, in particular, on the common law tort of appropriation of personality. The tort was first articulated by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Krouse v. Chrysler Canada Ltd., (1973), 1 O.R. (2d) 225 (Ont. C.A.) It allows […]
A recent blog has commented on copyright reforms proposed at the Leadership Music Digital Summit. In particular, panelists at the seminar had suggested that copyright registration should become mandatory for those seeking copyright protection. At the Summit, registration was seen as a solution to many ‘copyright ills’ including the problems of 'orphan works'. An orphan work is […]
In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions and their detrimental effect on the environment. To respond to this concern, countries have agreed to abide by world-wide abatement targets by reducing CO2 emissions to a certain level. However, curbing greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries has been […]
There is a growing concern among media companies that news aggregation websites (NAWs) are taking large portions of original content, ‘shaving away potential readers and profiting from the content’ without properly compensating the media companies that provide the original content. According to the Canadian Copyright Act, such taking of original content is allowed as long as […]
Recently Shepard Fairey, the creator of the famous Obama poster, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against the Associated Press [AP]. Fairey is asking the federal court to declare that his poster did not infringe the copyright of AP’s photograph. AP claimed ownership of the image appearing on the poster. The image closely resembles a photograph taken […]
In 2007, Dan Heller, a freelance photographer, filed a proposal with the US Copyright Office. The proposal urged for the creation of a system of privately-run ‘Copyright Registrars’. The proposal describes a universal online system where a large number of private companies would be involved in the processing of copyright registration of original works. The […]
For the past year and a half, one political figure has evoked much publicity around the world that very few celebrities or politicians have enjoyed during their whole life. This political figure is the newly elected U.S. president, Barack Obama. The Obama craze has resulted in, what Megan Boler calls, a ‘merchandising mayhem’. In the U.S., […]
On December 4, the renowned guitarist Joe Satriani filed a copyright lawsuit against the British rock group Coldplay. Satriani argued that a substantial part of his original instrumental piece, ‘If I could Fly’, was reproduced in the band’s hit, ‘Viva La Vida’. Coldplay faced a similar allegation earlier this year. The young Brooklyn band, Creaky […]
While parody is a well-established defence to copyright infringement in the U.S, a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision says that this is not the case in Canada. On November 24, in a judgment on a motion to strike portions of the Statement of Defence, the B.C. Supreme Court Master ruled that parody could not be […]
The buzz around ‘net neutrality’ has started again. ‘Net neutrality’ is a term that became widely used and debated in the early 2000s. Simply put ‘net neutrality’ means ‘absolute non-discrimination’ against any site or content on the net. In particular, the term suggests that users should have equal access to the internet and that broadband […]