Archive for April 30th, 2007

MPAA & RIAA Criticize USTR Position on Canada

One of the big surprises in this year's USTR Special 301 Report was the decision to keep Canada at the lowest level of priority (the Watch List) rather than elevate it to the Priority Watch List.  Indeed, all the political signs pointed to an elevation – all the major U.S. […]

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April 30, 2007 2 comments News

Law Times on Copyright “Over-Enforcement”

The Law Times with a feature on how copyright over-enforcement could stifle growth.

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April 30, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

USTR Releases Special 301 Report

The USTR this morning released the 2007 Special 301 Report, its annual report card that features the U.S. perspective on intellectual property protection in dozens of countries around the world.  Despite some thought that the U.S. might elevate Canada from its Watch List to the Priority Watch List, no such […]

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April 30, 2007 2 comments News

Lawsuits Put Online Free Speech At Risk

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on the defamation lawsuits launched in British Columbia by Wayne Crookes against a who's who of the Internet, including Yahoo!, MySpace, and Wikipedia.  Those companies are accused of defaming Crookes not by virtue of anything they have said, but rather by permitting their users to post or link to articles that are allegedly defamatory.

The lawsuits could prove to be critically important to the Internet in Canada, because they cast the net of liability far wider than just the initial posters.  Indeed, the lawsuits seek to hold accountable sites and services that host the articles, feature comments about the articles, include hyperlinks to the articles, fail to actively monitor their content to ensure that allegedly defamatory articles are not reposted after being removed, and even those that implement the domain name registrations of sites that host the articles.

The common link with all of these targets is that none are directly responsible for alleged defamation.  Rather, the Crookes lawsuits maintain that Internet intermediaries should be held equally responsible for such content.

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April 30, 2007 18 comments Columns

YouTube Pulls Vimy Video

CTV's David Akin reports that YouTube has pulled a 30 second video he shot himself at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.

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April 30, 2007 2 comments News