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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

Alberta Court Declares Portions of Provincial Privacy Law Unconstitutional

David Fraser reports that the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench has ruled that portions of the Personal Information Protection Act (Alberta) are unconstitutional. The Court found that the law violates freedom of expression under Section 2(b) of the Charter and these provisions cannot be justified by Section 1 of the […]

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September 7, 2011 Comments are Disabled News

NDP on the Wikileaks Canadian Copyright Cables

The NDP issued a release yesterday criticizing the government on the revelations found in the Wikileaks cables involving Canada and copyright. The party said the cables paint “an alarming picture.”

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September 7, 2011 1 comment News