Canadian Originality: Remarks on a Judgment in Search of an Author

Professor Abraham Drassinower (University of Toronto) has a new paper available on SSRN, "Canadian Originality: Remarks on a Judgment in Search of an Author".  Professor Drassinower describes his paper below. The standard of originality in Canadian copyright law has recently undergone significant transformation. Traditionally a jurisdiction that, in the eyes of many, had adopted a […]

Fair application of 'Fair Dealing': A look at uncertainties

In George Nathanael’s post titled “Protecting Graffiti Artists”, he proposed that withholding copyright protection for graffiti is the best response to the question of whether creators of graffiti should be protected the same way as other artists who create murals on their own property. The dilemma of rewarding someone who created a work of art in […]

One Size Does Not Fit All

Under Canadian patent law, the scope of patentable subject matter is still expanding. But under U.S. patent law, “anything under the sun made by man” is patentable. This has come to include patents for computer software. Software patents raise a debate over which algorithms are novel, and which are non-obvious. Some algorithms may arguably have […]

What is in a Title?

The notion of originality in copyright seems to reinforce an outdated assumption of author as a singular creator. Today, there are a plethora of cases that defy this notion. Most notably is act of collaboration and collective production. The notion of collective production is clearly illustrated in the example of current mainstream popular music production. […]