Howard Knopf assesses the legal battle over the City of Toronto's use of the penny in an advertising campaign.
A Penny for Your Thoughts
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Stupid
I\’m appalled that this sort of Americanized corporate copyright bullhockey has made its way into Canada, and from a crown corporation, no less.
There are three issues here:
1. How can you possibly copyright what is a proper noun used so frequently that it warrants being an improper one?
2. Crown corporations (basically, government) can own copyrights? Something is *seriously* wrong with that notion; it needs to be addressed and reformed.
3. Arguably, the government is using copyright as a cloak to suppress Torontonians\’ political freedom of speech. This is wrong on so many levels, from that government should *never* be able to assert copyright, to that they are lying about their true motives and that free speech is being oppressed (I hope I don\’t have to tell anyone what is wrong with that). I\’m disgusted that this is even able to occur in a democracy such as ours.