For nearly two decades, Rob Reger and his company Cosmic Debris have spent millions of dollars developing the fictional character “Emily the Strange” as a gothic rebel who finds nothing more boring than copying everyone else. Over the years, Emily has evolved from a skateboard design to a media empire which includes clothing lines, comic […]
Three months ago I posted a response to Dan Hartrell’s article: Facebook’s grassroots earn policy voice. Dan’s article focused on the new grassroots, open approach Facebook was taking which allowed social network users to comment and vote on Facebook policies. In my response, I questioned the wisdom of having a corporation emulate a nation by […]
A recent Court of Appeal decision in England declared that retention of photos taken of a man by the police long after it was determined that no crime had occurred by the person was a breach of privacy. Andrew Wood was photographed as he was leaving the annual general meeting of Reed Elsevier plc, which […]
Annie Messerkhanian recently completed her second year of the J.D. program at Osgoode Hall Law School. Having just completed my second year of study, I was acutely aware of the fact that I had only one year remaining within which to complete my Osgoode Public Interest Requirement (OPIR). Students at Osgoode Hall Law School, beginning […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. On Thursday, May 21, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrapped up hearings on the preliminary injunction she granted in the fall against Real Networks and its “RealDVD” copying software. And the Real “Facet” DVD copying and storage device […]
In a recently released decision by the Canada Patent Appeal Board and Commissioner of Patents, an application by Amazon.com for its one-click ordering system was rejected. The application contained 75 claims and was a response to the Examiner’s report from 2002, where claims 44 to 50 were directed to a physical object and the rest were […]
The dispute between Microsoft Corporation and the defendants, PC Village Markham, PC Village Downtown – two software retailers in the Greater Toronto Area – and two of their employees, Syed Aziz and Johnson Ye, arose because the defendants were selling counterfeit Microsoft software, “software that was neither manufactured by Microsoft nor by any of its […]
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 […]
Section 230 of the United States Communications Decency Act (47 USC 230) gives “providers of interactive computer services” (like ISPs, internet forums and social networking sites) immunity from certain types of claims when the providers publish or republish the works of other people. It was enacted to overrule a 1995 decision that held an ISP […]
It is no secret that counterfeit goods have been sold over the internet for years. Your relation to someone who has purchased some form of counterfeited good over the internet most probably follows the six degrees of separation rule. As a prominent source of the sale of counterfeit goods, U.S.-based eBay has been sued by […]