Issue 1: Search Engines Selling Ad Space For Keywords That Happen To Be Trademarked Brands Search engines, including Google, commonly sell Internet ad space on searches that are particular to the keywords used in the search. When the keyword is an actual trademarked brand, a competitor to that brand may purchase the ad space to that […]
Free downloading, via the Internet, is no longer a secret and has become commonplace, resulting in immense profit losses and copyright infringements. Established torrent websites and shareware programs, operating without license or authorization, knowingly allow full copies of musical work to be downloaded. These unfortunate circumstances resulted in Jim Griffin, consultant for the music label […]
Deliberate betrayal…a family torn apart in a quest for what is believed to be rightfully theirs. Although it sounds like a teaser for one of John Steinbeck’s classic novels, the drama that unfolded in a New York courtroom in late August was straight out of the pages of the Steinbeck family feud. On August 13, […]
In 2007, a coalition of 31 major media industry groups brought an action against Sébastien Brulotte (HYPERLINKs: http://torrentfreak.com/canadian-music-labels-take-on-bittorrent-trackers-071018/ AND http://torrentfreak.com/backdoor-to-banning-all-canadian-bittorrent-sites-071125/ )). On July 9, 2008, Mr. Brulotte received a permanent injunction from the Superior Court of Quebec, ordering the closing of his site QuebecTorrent, a peer-to-peer (p2p) network used to share files (HYPERLINK: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=648919 )). […]
Social networking sites can help users communicate with friends, find people with similar interests, facilitate professional networking and give exposure to lesser-known artists. With these sites becoming all the rage, there is now a question of who owns the information posted on user profiles. Once you create a profile and post your thoughts, do you […]
Former NFL running back Jim Brown has filed a complaint against Electronic Arts (EA) and Sony for using his image in EA’s Madden NFL series without his authorization. He is claiming unspecified damages and an order to stop any such use. While modern athletes sign agreements to use their names and likenesses in games, video […]
Tiffany, a luxury goods retailer, is appealing the verdict in its case against eBay.com, an online marketplace, for, inter alia, contributory trademark infringement. Tiffany alleges that eBay facilitated and allowed the sale of counterfeit Tiffany jewellery and, as relief, seeks an order requiring eBay not to post more than five items of Tiffany merchandise from […]
Following the SCC decision in CCH there has been renewed focus in Canada on balancing the rights of users with those of creators.1 Furthermore, with the most recent reformation of our copyright laws poised to die on the order paper for the second time in as many elections we are presented once again with the ability to […]
On February 6th, 2008, the Ohio Supreme Court in Al Minor & Assoc. v. Martin,[1] held that memorized information can fall within the scope of trade secrets in accordance to the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA). The court’s desire to discard the written-memorized information distinction was principally to align the UTSA with like acts from […]
A U.S. appellate court recently held in Jacobsen v. Katzer that copyright holders who dedicate their work for free public use are entitled to enforce an open-source copyright license to restrict the work’s future distribution and modification. The Court ruled that open-source licenses are enforceable under copyright law, not merely under contract law, thereby providing […]