Artmob: An Open-Source, Fair Dealing Content Management System for the Arts

Stuart Freen is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. This past summer I was fortunate enough to work on Artmob, an interdisciplinary project here at York. Headed by Canada Research Chairs Rosemary Coombe and Christopher Innes along with Darren Wershler-Henry, Artmob is basically about building an online, open-source content management system for arts […]

Copyright for the masses? It’s not quite as black and white

Brian Chau is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Where do we draw the line between commercial and non-commercial uses? Is this view the same across content creators and users? A quick background Creative commons licences are designed to help content creators (who own the copyright) communicate to their users which rights they […]

A Stroke of Genius or Copyright Infringement? Mashups, Copyright, and Moral Rights in Canada

Graham Reynolds is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, a member of Dalhousie Law School's Law and Technology Institute and the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology.  He is also an IP Osgoode Research Affiliate. Have you ever wanted to see Metric's […]

U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Rules that Turnitin's Fight Against Plagiarism Does Not Violate Student Intellectual Property Rights: A Dissenting Opinion

Stephen Sharon is a recent graduate of Touro Law School in New York where he focused on intellectual property.  Stephen was also the first place winner of the Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition sponsored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for his submission of a case study about the legal battle between […]

Parody As Fair Dealing, Eh?

s. 29.1 of Canada's Copyright Act provides that fair dealing for the purpose of criticism does not infringe copyright if the source is mentioned. The main issue then is whether parody - the use of humor or ridicule to point out some particular feature of the original work - is an acceptable form of criticism as per […]

The reasonable expectation of the consumer in her personal use of musical recordings: how much weight does it have in the balance?

Pascale Chapdelaine is a Ph.D. candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School and a member of IP Osgoode. Pascale's thesis focuses on the interaction between consumer law and copyright law.  What is the consumer entitled to do with musical recordings for her own personal use? Asking this question may appear to some, including consumers, as looking […]

Song Samplers Beware: Your future is far from certain.

  Amanda Cohen is a first year law student at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Legal Values: Challenges in Intellectual Property course Song Samplers Beware: Your future is uncertain. Friday, March 13th marks the Canadian release date of RIP: A Remix Manifesto, Montreal filmmaker Brett Gaylor’s look into mash-up culture and sampling.  This film and its […]

News aggregation websites: Fair dealing v. Free riding

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 […]

YouTube Reality Check

Lawrence Lessig, copyright activist and founder of Creative Commons, is promoting his new book “Remix”. In a recent Wall Street Journal column, he raises a number of criticisms of copyright law and suggests several reforms. One criticism focuses on YouTube and amateur videos that incorporate elements from copyrighted works. Lessig attempts to make his point […]