The Toronto International Film Festival has removed from its 2025 schedule a documentary film by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich that tells the story of Noam Tibon’s mission to save his family during the October 7th attacks by Hamas in Israel. The film is based on the excellent book by Amir Timon, the Gates of Gaza, which recounts both the rescue effort and the longstanding fraught relationship between Israel and Gaza. According to Deadline, the film, titled The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, was scheduled to be included in the program announced last week. But TIFF asked that the source of Hamas body-cam footage included in the film be identified and to provide copyright clearances for the video. You read that correctly: TIFF wanted the filmmakers to obtain copyright licences from Hamas terrorists.
Post Tagged with: "fair dealing"
Canadian Media Companies Target OpenAI in Copyright Lawsuit But Weak Claims Suggest Settlement the Real Goal
Canada’s largest media companies, including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Postmedia, CBC, and Canadian Press, came together last week to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, the owners of ChatGPT. The lawsuit is the first high profile Canadian claim lodged against the enormously popular AI service, though there have been similar suits filed elsewhere, notably including a New York Times lawsuit launched last year. While the lawsuit itself isn’t a huge surprise, the relatively weak, narrow scope of the claims discussed below are. Unlike comparable lawsuits, the Canadian media companies claim is largely limited to data scraping, which may be the weakest copyright claim. Moreover, the companies say they have no actual knowledge of when, where, or how their data was accessed, an acknowledgement that doesn’t inspire confidence when there is evidence available if you know where to look.
So why file this lawsuit? The claim is sprinkled with the most obvious reason: the Canadian media companies want a settlement that involves OpenAI paying licence fees for the inclusion of their content in its large language models and the lawsuit is designed to kickstart negotiations. The companies aren’t hiding the ball as there are repeated references along the lines of “at all times, Open AI was and is well aware of its obligations to obtain a valid licence to use the Works. It has already entered into licensing agreements with several content creators, including other news media organizations.” The takeaway is that Canadian media companies want to licence their stuff too, much like the licensing agreements with global media companies such as News Corp, Financial Times, Hearst, Axel Springer, Le Monde, and the Associated Press.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 206: James Plotkin and David Fewer on Canada’s Landmark Copyright Ruling on Fair Dealing and Digital Locks
The debate over copyright and digital locks – technically referred to as anti-circumvention legislation – dates back more than 25 years with creation of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet Treaties and later in Canada with the enactment of the Copyright Modernization Act. The full scope and application of those digital lock rules has been the subject of considerable controversy, particularly over how fair dealing fits into the equation. The Federal Court of Canada recently issued a landmark decision on the issue which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. CIPPIC, the University of Ottawa’s public interest technology law clinic, raised the key arguments on the issue in an intervention in the case led by James Plotkin, a partner with the law firm Gowlings, and David Fewer, CIPPIC’s Director and General Counsel. They join the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the ruling and to clear up some of the misinformation that has been circulating since its release.
Huge Win for Copyright User Rights in Canada: Federal Court Rules Digital Lock Rules Do Not Trump Fair Dealing
The Federal Court has issued a landmark decision (Blacklock’s Reports v. Attorney General of Canada) on copyright’s anti-circumvention rules which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. Rather, the two must co-exist in harmony, leading to an interpretation that users can still rely on fair dealing even in cases involving those digital locks. The decision could have enormous implications for libraries, education, and users more broadly as it seeks to restore the copyright balance in the digital world. The decision also importantly concludes that merely requiring a password does not meet the standard needed to qualify for copyright rules involving technological protection measures. If this all sounds technical, this post provides the necessary background and then reviews the decision.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 194: CCH Turns 20 – Scott Jolliffe Goes Behind the Scenes of the Landmark Copyright Case That Ushered in Users’ Rights
Twenty years ago today the Supreme Court of Canada released CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada, a decision that stands as perhaps the most consequential in Canadian copyright law history as it would firmly establish fair dealing as a users right and serve as the foundation for copyright law in Canada for decades to come. Leading off the hearing several months earlier for the Law Society was Scott Joliffe, an IP litigator with the law firm Gowlings. Joliffe was charged with arguing the fair dealing aspects of the case, but it was only at last moment that users right entered the picture. To mark its 20th anniversary, Joliffe joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about the CCH case, his strategy and insights from the hearing, and his thoughts on its impact many years later.
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