Billy Barnes is a JD candidate at the University of Toronto. In a much publicized move, Amazon remotely deleted two books from users' Kindle e-book readers. It causes one to wonder what rights we actually have in our digital possessions in this increasingly connected world. As you quickly learn when you start studying IP law, property […]
On May 6, 2009, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger launched an initiative to make available free digital textbooks for high school students. California's Secretary of Education, Glen Thomas, was responsible for ensuring that digital resources were available for use in high school math and science classes this September. According to Governor Schwarzenegger, California's budget crisis motivated […]
Open core licensing, also known as commercial extensions, is a licensing regime that offers core components for free, but charges licensees for additional premium products. The approach is a twist on the dual licensing approach where the vendor, as copyright holder, makes the source code freely available, but also offers the same code under a […]
Despite the ominous verdict from the Swedish court which sentenced The Pirate Bay (TPB) operators to a year in prison and a penalty of US $3.6 million for facilitating copyright infringement, TPB may soon have new life breathed into the service. Global Gaming Factory X, a Swedish software company, has offered to purchase TPB for […]
Virgin Media and Universal Music Group have taken the plunge into an ISP and digital music collaboration to provide customers in the UK with unlimited access to MP3 downloads and streaming of Universal label artists. Although the exact monthly fee for this service has yet to be determined, Virgin plans to provide the service for […]
Over this past week, the Members of the European Parliament have been deliberating over a new proposal for a pan-European copyright licensing system for digital content. Proposed on Tuesday in Strasbourg by Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, and Meglena Kuneva, Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, the new plan would pave the way for […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. You've probably heard the expression "the long tail" used by Web 2.0 cognoscenti. Despite the largely uncritical acceptance the idea received a few years ago, research shows that for artists the "long tail" is the "wrong tale". But it may […]
James Gannon is an Osgoode Hall alumnus and is currently an articling student at McCarthy Tétrault. Much attention has recently been paid to proposed legislation that would require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to step up their efforts to prevent subscribers from downloading copyright-protected content through the Internet connections they provide. These initiatives are often described […]
Susan Corbett is a Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington In response to a barrage of criticism, unprecedented in response to a topic as alien to the average kiwi as copyright law, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has announced that section 92A of the Copyright Act 1994 will not come into force […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. If you believe as I do that "voluntary collective licensing" is neither voluntary, collective nor a license, you will be interested in reading "Choruss's Covenant: The Promised Land (Maybe) For Record Labels; A Lesser Destination For Everyone Else," a very […]