Archive for October 27th, 2008

B. C. Court Rules Linking To Content Not Republication

A B.C. court has ruled that linking to allegedly defamatory content does not amount to a republication of the content.  The case arises from one of the Crookes lawsuits, this one involving both Wikipedia and P2PNet.net [full disclosure: Crookes is suing me with similar claims that include linking to websites […]

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October 27, 2008 3 comments News

World Customs Union Copyright Policy Questioned

IP Watch reports on growing criticism of the World Customs Union, which is enforcing strict restrictions on the use of its public documents.

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October 27, 2008 Comments are Disabled News

Canadian Public Domain Registry Seeks Library Beta-Testers

The Canadian Public Domain Registry, a joint project of Access Copyright, Creative Commons Canada, Creative Commons, and the Wikimedia Foundation, is seeking beta testers from the Canadian library community.

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October 27, 2008 1 comment News

Cavoukian Warns of ID Card Threat

The Toronto Sun reports that Ontario Privacy Commissioner has warned about the privacy risks in the planned enhanced provincial drivers' license that will contain RFID technology.

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October 27, 2008 2 comments News

Canadian Podcasting Royalty Down But Not Out

In the annals of Canadian copyright royalty fights, few can match Tariff 22 for pure stamina and longevity.  First introduced in 1995 by SOCAN, thirteen years later the proposal is still the source of much disagreement.  Indeed, years after the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an attempt to implement a tariff on Internet service providers for the music transmitted over their networks, the Copyright Board of Canada issued a new decision on Friday that addressed the prospect of establishing a royalty on hundreds of thousands of websites ranging from social network giants such as Facebook to thousands of Canadian podcasters.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that while Friday's decision is not limited to social networks and podcasters – the decision established royalty rates for, among others, Internet-based radio stations that are deemed to be high users of music (5.3 percent of revenues), electronic games sites (0.8 percent of revenues), and non-commercial radio station webcasts (1.9 percent) – it is the "other sites" category that encompasses everyone from MySpace to a solitary website featuring a small amount of music that will rightly attract the most attention.

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October 27, 2008 4 comments Columns