The ID Trail team has produced an interesting documentary on various issues associated with the reasonable expectation of privacy featuring a who's who of the privacy world.
Latest Posts
The Man Who Owns the Internet
Business 2.0 features an interesting article on domainers, with a particular focus on Canadian Kevin Ham, a former family physician who holds about 300,000 domain names (thanks Zak).
Lucasfilm to Offer Star Wars Clips for Mashups
The WSJ reports that Lucasfilm will offer hundreds of Star Wars clips that can be used to remix and post online.
Standards Council of Canada Seeks Comment on Open XML
The Standards Council of Canada has launched a public consultation on a proposal to adopt Office Open XML (Open XML) as an international open standard. Deadline for comment is July 5, 2007 (hat tip: Tobin Dalrymple).
Museums and the Public Domain
The Associated Press has picked up on a story involving public access to images in the Smithsonian Institution. Public.Resource.Org has posted 6,288 images currently sold by the Smithsonian on Flickr (a book of the images can be downloaded for free from Lulu.com), arguing that the U.S. institution is overreaching by claiming copyright or control over images that are in the public domain.
The issue is an important one that should also resonate in Canada. Some readers may recall the battle between a small school division in Manitoba and the National Gallery of Canada over fees levied for a public domain Paul Kane painting. In the wake of that incident, I've been working with some students to identify how Canadian museums address access to public domain works in their collections. The research is not yet complete, however, the preliminary news is not good.
Museums are strapped for cash and therefore use their physical control over images to levy fees over public domain works. While a cost-recovery fee for digitization or administration is understandable, many institutions go much further charging "surrogate copyright fees" or "user's fees" for public domain works or deploy technology to limit the potential uses of digitized versions of those works.
For example, consider Emily Carr, whose work entered the public domain in 1996.
Recent Posts
A Post I Never Thought I Would Need to Write: Jewish Students Have the Right to Feel Safe on Campus 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 203: Andrew Clement on Calls to Separate Privacy Reform and Artificial Intelligence Regulation in Bill C-27 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 202: David Soberman on the Reality Behind Claims Canadian Wireless Prices Have Been Cut in Half 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 201: Robert Diab on the Billion Dollar Lawsuits Launched By Ontario School Boards Against Social Media Giants 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 200: Colin Bennett on the EU’s Surprising Adequacy Finding on Canadian Privacy Law
