What probably started as a silly prank could turn into criminal charges of personation against a high school student from Brandon, Manitoba, who set up a phony Facebook profile in his teacher's name that included the teacher's photo and biographical details.1 Although in the end, these criminal charges will probably be nothing more than a […]
The academic scientific community conventionally shares research results, ideas and expertise. Not surprisingly, the commoditization of peer reviewed journal articles seems antiquated with cost and accessibility issues when compared with online posting, web-enabled databases, free online journals and guides as knowledge dissemination tools. In the Aug 25, 2008 edition of The Tech, these practices are […]
As a result of the recent proliferation of social networking sites, a debate has emerged over the media’s ability to use photos added to user profiles, in the absence of express permission granted by the owner. Exacerbating this issue was a recent incident where all four of Toronto’s daily newspapers published articles regarding the murder […]
Digital locks[DLs] are ‘virtual fences’ put around digital content.1 An example is a password authorizing the access to an online music store such as iTunes. The government, through legislation, has the responsibility to discourage abuses of DLs. There are at least two types of DLs abuses that harm society. The first involves the actions of users […]
Whilst counterfeits are easily recognizable, the issue is the line between inspiration and knock-offs in the fashion industry. In this article, designers and IP lawyers differ on where this line should be drawn. I shall analyse these views and propose where IP law could draw the line. Is IP needed here? Theoretically, IP rewards “true” […]
In “(Digital) Locks are multipurpose tools, and can be used or abused”, Rusell McOrmond makes the distinction between digital locks on content, such as mechanisms on audio CDs that prevent users from “ripping” songs to external devices, and digital locks on devices, which only allows devices to play certain types of content. He argues that […]
In a recent Quebec Superior Court case, Justice Tessier issued an injunction closing down the file-sharing website, QuebecTorrent.com. The site allowed for the free sharing of music and videos among users. This is a perfect example of the long standing debate between the owners/authors of copyright and the users of copyright. Although this may seem […]
The four factors steering Fair Use (FU) exceptions to copyright infringement are found at s.107 of the U.C.C. FU seeks ‘to work its way through the relevant factors and be judged case by case’ (D 40), and unfairness in any one factor does not necessarily render the whole unfair. Precedent for FU indicates that US […]
In 2006, Jason Fortuny posted a fake advertisement on Craigslist by a supposed “female bondage enthusiast” who was looking for a “white or latin man ... 2 give intense pain and discipline." The 178 responses, some of which had pictures attached, were then posted on an encyclopaedia website. Recently, a respondent sued Fortuny for damages […]
In August 2008, Capitol Records, owner of the copyright in John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” brought a preliminary injunction before the Supreme Court of the State of New York to prevent Premise Media Corporation from making unauthorized use of the recording in their film “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed.” Premise Media argued that the film supports the […]