When I first read the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark decision in CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada concerning the concept of originality in copyright law, I thought something was amiss. According to the Copyright Act, copyright shall subsist in every original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work; however, "original" is not […]
An Ontario Superior Court has rejected a class action settlement between the publisher Thomson Reuters and a collection of Canadian lawyers and law firms, stating that the proposed settlement is not “fair, reasonable, or in the best interests of the Class Members.” The proposed settlement would have seen Thomson Reuters fund a trust for public […]
In the latest installment of the legal saga surrounding Google's book digitization project, Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District NY court has granted summary judgement in favour of Google, Inc. following eight years of litigation.
On Friday October 4 2013 , the University of Ottawa hosted the launch event of the new book The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law. The book, edited by Michael Geist, features chapters written by a number of prominent intellectual property law professors, including IP Osgoode's Professor Giuseppina […]
In light of updates to the Copyright Act and the Supreme Court’s copyright Pentalogy rulings, the Association for Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) has released updated guidelines for their fair dealing policy.
Won’t somebody think of the children!? A New York federal court judge will. A copyright infringement lawsuit by multiple authors’ groups – including two Canadian ones – against Google and several universities for their HathiTrust Digital Library book scanning and digital distribution has been dismissed.
In a brief decision released September 19, the Copyright Board of Canada held that the Category 4 copies at issue in Alberta (Education) v Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright) [Access Copyright] constituted fair dealing for the purposes of research and private study.
Modern concepts of art and creativity pose a challenge for traditional notions of copyright law. Last March, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on the legality of appropriation art.
Robert Dewald is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School Technology plays an important role in today’s educational institutions by providing easy access to and distribution of music, art, literature and other information that forms the foundation of a person’s education. Yet the innovation and technological advances that have created powerful teaching tools, such […]
Vincent Doré is a JD/MBA Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School and Schulich School of Business. Documentary films are meant to depict reality. In fact, a documentary’s sole purpose may be to expose the reality obscured by propaganda, censorship and corruption. It is therefore in the public’s best interest to allow documentary filmmakers to depict […]