Introduction In December 2006, Time magazine celebrated “You” as the person of the year.[1] In the article, Lev Grossman stated that our history is no longer shaped by a few famous men but by all of us who are part of the new Web.[2] He applauded the fact that over the past year: We made […]
With the rising popularity of video and computer games, a new form of user generated content ("UGC") and a whole new set of intellectual property issues is emerging. Science fiction web series such as Red vs. Blue use copyrighted graphics and characters from the popular Xbox video game Halo to create new comedic content parodying first person shooter […]
The culture industries appear to be at a crossroads. Shifting advertising practices as well as audience viewing and consumption habits continue to contribute to new challenges and opportunities for media and entertainment providers throughout the world. With its new “A Space for All of Us” strategy, Canada’s national public broadcaster – the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio-Canada […]
Creating YouTube videos incorporating copyright protected works is a commonplace, often amateur pursuit of today's tech-savvy cultural 'consumers' and no one is making money off of it, right?... Wrong!
Bill C-11[1] provides for a new exception to infringement for user-generated content (UGC), along with new grounds for fair dealing. These provisions, combined with a strong and clear message from the Supreme Court of Canada’s pentalogy of copyright cases regarding users’ rights and the copyright balance, signal a new paradigm for copyright law in Canada—one […]
With markets in real property, personal property, and intellectual property quite cornered, the future-savvy lawyer might consider their cutting-edge cousin, if France's data-mining tax proposal has its way: what could be termed existential property*, courtesy of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the like. Or rather, courtesy of their users, whose digitally collected personal data may be wholesale […]