Early in July, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) came to a decision with regards to the distribution rights retained by a software company. The ruling, resulting from litigation between UsedSoft GmbH and Oracle International Corp., which can be found here, will prove an important one in today’s increasingly digital society.
The much anticipated Supreme Court of Canada ruling in Rogers Communications Inc v Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, 2012 SCC 35 (Rogers v SOCAN), culminated with a unanimous Court holding that on-demand transmissions of music streams made available by online music services constitute communications “to the public”. Consequently, the on-demand streaming of […]
When Judy Mikovits had a ‘keystone’ scientific discovery widely discredited, resulting in the loss of her job, it is unlikely that she considered the state of the intellectual property laws governing the work that she performed for her former employer, the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI). However, in November 2011, following the initiation of civil action […]
On June 11 2012 an article by Vinay Menon appeared in the Toronto Star titled “Anne of Green Gables to be remade for TV”. The article reports that Kate Macdonald Butler, granddaughter to author Lucy Maud Montgomery and president of the family-owned company Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc., will be centrally involved in a new […]
In 2007, Pepsico (“Pepsi”), makers of its namesake fizzy drink did their competitors, The Coca Cola Company (“Coke”) a good turn, by turning in two Coke employees who tried to sell its secret recipe to Pepsi. This decision on Pepsi’s part can be read as a mixture of sound business acumen, legal sense and some […]
On June 8th 2012, lawyers and artists will be converging in Ottawa for the Art + Law conference, hosted by CARFAC. One of the major topics of discussion will doubtless be the recently debated Artists' Resale Right (ARR).
Free online access to tax-funded scientific research is the most recent movement by American open-access advocate group Access2Research. The group calls for a policy similar to the one currently implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). New scientific papers, which were funded by the NIH, are deposited in the online databank PubMED within a […]
In a long-anticipated court ruling on May 9th, a California judge upheld former Village People lead singer Victor Willis’s right to reclaim ownership of hit songs such as “YMCA” and “In the Navy.” Early last year, Willis invoked an amendment of United States copyright law which deals with inalienable “termination rights” with respect to recordings […]
The copyright and patent dispute between Oracle and Google continues, however a partial verdict on the copyright side of the debate has been handed down.
When the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) announced that it would be creating a digital representation of the Canadian Dollar in the form of MintChip, the digital currency sphere lit up with comparisons to numerous previous attempted forms of digital currencies – most notably Bitcoin, a decentralized electronic cash system developed by Satoshi Nakamoto.