In a recent opinion piece at wired.com, Bruce Schneier criticizes the “expectation of privacy” test that is used to interpret the fourth amendment of the United States. He notes that this test is dangerous, because “the whole ‘expectations’ test is circular -- what the government does affects what the government can do”. The American constitution […]
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 […]
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. […]
Earlier this month, Facebook experienced a backlash when it changed its privacy policy. The grassroots uprising can be seen on blogs such as The Consumerist, which dissected and criticized the new policies. Although Facebook had always reserved an “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license” to use any content from its users, the new […]
Over the past year, authoritarian governments have been cracking down on “subversive” Internet activity, attracting disapproval from human rights groups. However, U.S. technology companies have played an important role in such incidents. In the case of Chinese dissident Shi Tao, Yahoo! surrendered identifying information that allowed the Chinese government to arrest and jail him. To […]
The global economic downturn continues to make its impact. A few months ago, I mentioned the possibility that patents might be used to leverage credit, in the face of cautious lenders. Bloomberg.com is reporting that firms might be more desperate: “Small-cap technology companies from Silicon Valley to Israel, struggling to raise enough money to survive […]
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google wanted service providers to give preference to their content, so that it would be transmitted to consumers faster. According to the WSJ: Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own […]
Last Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights made an important ruling on the privacy of a person’s unique genetic information. The European Court, citing a Supreme Court of Canada decision with approval, determined that it was an illegal violation of a person’s rights to keep a person’s DNA sample when they had no prior […]
In the U.S. case Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa, the the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit adopted an “ordinary observer” test for determining whether a design patent (also known as an industrial design) has been infringed. Prior to this case, courts often used a “point of novelty” test: identify the point of novelty […]
In Argentina, Google and Yahoo! have blocked the results of several searches on famous people, in response to an injunction from an Argentinean judge. Several lawsuits from athletes, entertainers, and political figures have led to a judicial order to block defamatory and pornographic search results. While the order did not target all search results on […]