October 22, 2011 - In handing down its decision yesterday in Wayne Crookes and West Coast Title Search Ltd. v. Jon Newton, the Supreme Court of Canada struck an important blow for certainty as far as Canadian internet publishers and users are concerned. The case, appealed from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, concerned a website operated by Newton. An article he posted on it contained hyperlinks to other websites, which in turn contained information about Crookes. Crookes sued Newton alleging that two of the hyperlinks connected to defamatory material, and that by using the hyperlinks, Newton was himself “publishing” the defamatory material. Read more...
Apparently feeling that they’ve resolved the longstanding issue of illegal immigration and can move on to the next crisis, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and the U.S. Justice Department have identified a new enemy in their ongoing stuggle to protect truth, justice and the American way: Internet sites that sell counterfeit goods and pirated movies.
Indeed, just this month, government officials announced that they have shut down nine websites as part of their newly announced initiative, “Operation In Our Sites,” which is intended to protect Hollywood’s intellectual property. Officials estimated that nearly 7 million pirated movies and shows per month were downloaded from the offending websites.
The announcement was held on a soundstage at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA. Neither Johnny Depp nor Captain Hook reportedly was present.
In this short video, Margaret Gould Stewart, YouTube’s head of user experience, talks about how YouTube works with copyright holders and creators to foster (at the best of times) a creative ecosystem where everybody wins.
Posted February 28th, 2010 by Narine BagdassariancloseAuthor: Narine BagdassarianName: Narine Bagdassarian Email: nbagdass@yahoo.com Site:http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/narine-bagdassarian/19/855/ba3 About: Narine Bagdassarian is a lawyer with Jones Harley LLP in Toronto, Ontario. Her experience focuses on insurance defense work - personal injury, property loss, products liability and subrogation. Before moving to Toronto, she was a practicing attorney in Los Angeles, specializing in Workers’ Compensation Insurance Defense. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA in 2002 and, in 2005, she obtained her law degree from Whittier Law School.
Narine is a huge UCLA Bruins football fan, as well as being a devoted Los Angeles Kings fan. (Pre-game superstitions and protocol? Check.) She looks forward to the day when she can own the Kings. In the meantime, she's attempting to resist the urge to speak like a Canadian (failing miserably at this, she's been told).See Authors Posts (5)
This topic angers me. Fines for infringement under the Copyright Act range from $750 to $150,000 per infringement. That’s a wide spectrum! More disturbing is that the Act leaves the pricing decision in the hands of the judge, without any real guidelines for them to follow.
This week, a judge ordered Whitney Harper to pay $27,500 for illegally downloading 37 songs…I’ll do the math for you – that’s $750 a song, i.e., the minimum allowed. Earlier this year, Joel Tenenbaum was held liable for $675,000 for file sharing 30 songs – that’s $22,500 per song. It gets better. Nearly a year ago, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $1.92 million by a jury for downloading 24 songs…$80,000 per download! How does the court conclude how much to, for lack of a better word, charge per song? Is it based on the popularity of the song? Does Lady Gaga or Jay-Z rank higher than Skid Row or Journey because the former are currently more mainstream?
We all know that it’s illegal to download and distribute copyrighted digital music without paying for it. But can this sort of file sharing ever constitute “Fair Use”? Why or why not?
Last Monday, as part of our feature on the Top 10 Cyber Law Cases Pending Before Courts Today, we discussed The File Sharing Trials. We mentioned that on December 7, 2009, Judge Gertner of the District Court of Massachusetts issued a decision in Sony BMG Music v. Tenenbaumwhich considered whether a college student’s sharing of digital music for the personal enjoyment of himself and his friends constituted “fair use” of the copyrighted songs. The decision can be viewed Here.
Here’s a quick recap of the facts: the defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, was a college sophomore who was accused of using file-sharing programs like KaZaA to download and distribute 30 copyrighted songs. Tenenbaum’s file sharing was not for profit; it was for his own private enjoyment and that of his friends. He had downloaded songs, but not entire albums of music, and he did not make any changes to the music (i.e., turn them into his own creative work). Unfortunately, he had continued to file share notwithstanding changes in the case law which made it clear that his conduct was not protected, and after digital music was lawfully available (the iTunes Music Store debuted in April 2003, approximately 15 months before Tenenbaum’s computer was detected on the Kazaa network). Justice Gertner concluded that “fair use” was not a defence. Here’s why.
“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the plant” - Mark Twain.
What Are the File Sharing Trials?
The file sharing trials are copyright infringement actions dealing with the distribution and downloading of digital music. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade organization that supports and promotes the major music companies. Over the past few years, the RIAA has deployed investigators in cities across North America to track down individuals who pirate digital music, and has brought resulting lawsuits against music fans for sharing music over peer-to-peer networks.
For many people, these cases bring to mind the old saw “but for the grace of God, there go I.” Generally speaking, the RIAA has settled these lawsuits for relatively modest amounts. In a couple of cases, however, the defendants have opted instead to ‘roll the dice’ and go to trial. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, juries have discretion to award damages of anywhere between $750 and $150,000 per copyrighted work, but they are provided with little or no guidance in how damages are to be assessed. As a consequence, these file sharing trials have resulted in jury verdicts for shocking sums of money that would seem to dwarf any actual damages that have actually been suffered by the copyright holders. The fact that these damage awards may be grossly disproportionate to the harm actually incurred has generated constitutional concerns which will likely be tested in the courts in the near future. In particular, two cases have recently received a significant amount of media attention:
Apparently feeling that they’ve resolved the longstanding issue of illegal immigration and can move on to the next crisis, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and the U.S. Justice Department have identified a new enemy in their ongoing stuggle to protect truth, justice and the American way: Internet sites that sell counterfeit goods and pirated movies.
