Archive for September, 2011

Hurt Locker File Sharing Suits Come North: Federal Court Orders ISPs to Disclose Subscriber Info

File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed. It now appears that the lawsuits are coming to Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has paved the way for the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who are alleged to have copied the movie.  Late last month the court ordered the three ISPs to disclose the names and addresses of subscribers linked to IP addresses alleged to have copied the movie. The ISPs were given two weeks to respond and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses. In reaching its decision, the court cited the BMG Canada v. Doe case, the last major Canadian case involving peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits. That case opened the door to further lawsuits, though it established some privacy safeguards. In this instance, the court cited PIPEDA as evidence that the personal information can be disclosed as well as federal court rules for the legitimacy of the claim and the necessity of acquiring the information for the lawsuit to proceed. There is no indication that the ISPs challenged the order or that there was an opportunity for a public interest intervention as was the case in the earlier CRIA lawsuits.

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September 9, 2011 72 comments News

Government to Reintroduce Bill C-32 “In Exactly the Same Form”

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore has told the Canadian Press that the government plans to reintroduce Bill C-32 in “exactly the same form” as the legislation that died on the order paper with the election call earlier this year.  Moore suggested that the government plans to pick up where it […]

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September 9, 2011 28 comments News

AUCC Responds to “Summer Fiction”

AUCC’s Paul Davidson has penned an op-ed in the Globe that responds to the “summer fiction” coming from Access Copyright. The piece sets the record straight on why the collectives one size fits all fee does not represent good value for money any more.

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September 9, 2011 Comments are Disabled News

BC Court Rules Rogers’ Zoocasa Real Estate Site Infringed Copyright, Breached Terms of Use

The B.C. Supreme Court has issued a lengthy ruling against Rogers Communications and its real estate search site, Zoocasa. The case originates from Century 21’s objections to Zoocasa’s scraping of its real estate listings and incorporating them into its own site. Zoocasa scraped the full listings for several months starting in August 2008, but in November 2008 switched to “truncated” descriptions that provide only basic information. In August 2009, Zoocasa began “framing” other sites, but it stopped that practice in December 2009.  Zoocasa stopped indexing Century 21 listings in 2010.

The decision includes many important findings on online contracts, trespass, and copyright. The court canvasses the law of online contracts and concludes that website terms of use can be enforceable.  In this particular case, Century 21’s terms prohibited copying or scraping its content. By doing so, Zoocasa breached the contract. The court awarded $1,000 in damages for the breach. Note that the court even finds that continuing to link to the Century 21 site (a practice prohibited by Century 21 once it provides notice) was a breach of the contract.

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September 8, 2011 17 comments News

Wikileaks Cables Provide Global Insights on Intellectual Property Issues

My posting on the Wikileaks Canadian copyright cables have generated considerable attention, but there have also been some very notable intellectual property related cables discovered from other countries. They include: numerous cables involving pharmaceutical drugs and trade pressures. Jamie Love has an excellent article on those cables. a cable from […]

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September 7, 2011 6 comments News