Not more than ten years ago, intellectual property was divided by heated rhetoric on both sides. The changing technological landscape had given citizens unprecedented power to copy, manipulate, and distribute art. If you were to attend a panel on copyright back then, you might have heard from a number of traditionalists in the music industry […]
On March 23, the Toronto Intellectual Property Group and IP Osgoode hosted Mario Bouchard, General Counsel for the Copyright Board of Canada, as a guest speaker at a dinner event in downtown Toronto. Mr. Bouchard focused his discussion on four issues: the role of the Board, copyright fragments, factors causing the Board’s increased workload, and […]
Adam Bucci is a first year law student at Osgoode Hall taking the “Legal Values: Challenges in Intellectual Property” course. I would like to address the impact that open source software has had on our intellectual property regime. In this post, I will: (i) outline some strong claims for significantly diluting – if not wholly […]
Afroditi Theodoridou is a PhD student at Osgoode Hall Law School. At the 27th Annual Conference of the Visual Resources Association (VRA), the international organization of image media professionals, the opening plenary session entitled “Fair Use or Fair Dealing: Which Should Give You More Comfort?” was held at the Ontario College of Art & Design […]
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 […]
Faraaz Damji is a first year law student at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Legal Values: Challenges in Intellectual Property course. In Yochai Benkler’s article, “Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and The Nature of the Firm” (Yale Law Journal, volume 112, online), Benkler attempts to address a major economic concern about open source software: What motivates contributors? […]
Next Monday, the EU Parliament will vote on a directive that would retroactively extend copyright in performer’s performances and sound recordings (as they are called here in Canada) from 50 to 95 years. The proposal has been met with strong opposition from the European academic community, including an impressive, 100 strong, list of academics against […]
Scientific discourse has always been encouraged as a means of nurturing accuracy and development, but according to a recent article by Andre Picard, the internet has changed the nature of scientific debate for the worse. According to Picard, in the world of cyberspace, scientific “evidence” now increasingly takes the form of anecdotal reports, and “debate” […]
Last Friday, IP Osgoode hosted a panel of copyright thinkers at Osgoode Entertainment and Sports Law Association’s 11th Annual Entertainment and Sports Law Conference. The panel was entitled “Copyright in the Remix Era”, but if the panelists could agree upon one thing it was that this new era is actually a return to old principles. […]
Katherine Booth is a first year law student at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Legal Values: Challenges in Intellectual Property course. Following the Supreme Court’s affirmation in CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 339 [CCH], that fair dealing under s. 29 of the Canadian Copyright Act is a […]