Topic Copyright

Arrrrrrrr your piracy days over? Federal Court of Canada weighs in

ARRRGGHH

Last Thursday, a huge decision came down from the Federal Court of Canada in the case of Voltage Pictures v. John Doe and Jane Doe. No, seriously, this is big. 80 Google News results! When was the last time a Federal Court decision even made the news? Does the decision mean the end of Canadian illegal downloading as we know it? Maybe! Maybe not! Well that’s clear as mud. Let’s try and sort this all out.

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That’s it for isoHunt :(

Slow servers, but god I love them

Back in March of this year we wrote “isoHunt is toast“. We were speaking figuratively at the time. Well now we can say it literally – isoHunt is toast. Well, not literally in the sense of the delicious breakfast food, but in the sense that it is over, done, kaput, closed forever. Off to the great website resting place in the sky, where it will party with AltaVista and GeoCities. We haz a sad, but we knew this was coming.

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Arrrgh, there be pirates in Canada, and you may even know them, Part 2 in a _-part series

ARRRGGHHAnother week, another notice from another ISP forwarded to your intrepid blogger for his usual insightful analysis snark. But this one’s even more fun, because it’s already found its way into the courts this week. Let’s dive in to the tale of a third-rate Hollywood movie company intent on suing everyone, everyone’s favourite Canadian ISP TekSavvy, and my secret spy friend, WHO’S TOTALLY INNOCENT. I want to make that clear.

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Hawt SCC Copyright Action! Part (something) in a series

Nice houseAnd we’re back with Part Something in our coverage of the Copyright Pentalogy. Last time we took a look at what I called the most “internet-y” of the cases, SOCAN v. Bell. Today let’s take a look at maybe the second most “internet-y” case, Rogers v. SOCAN. Man, I sense a SOCAN trend. HOLD THE PHONE. I just read the case, and decided we’re going to look at ESA v. SOCAN instead. SOCAN trend indeed. Anyway, let me explain the change of heart.

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Hot SCC Copyright Action! Part x in a series.

Nice houseSo you may remember back in December I wrote about the five copyright cases that were being heard in the Supreme Court. Well probably you don’t remember. ANYWAY, the decisions in the five cases (the “Copyright Pentalogy”) came down last week. And what do you know, they were all pretty much a big win for consumers, and for common sense. Yay, Supreme Court!

It’s really fucking hot, and I’ve got summertime to enjoy, so I have no desire right now to read all five cases. So I’ll be covering the cases (some of them?) over the next few weeks. If you just can’t wait, and you want to know about all five right now, go read Geist or Sookman. I’m sure they each have a team of students who read the cases for them. Me, I’m just one man. So let’s dig into one of the two most “internet-y” of the cases, SOCAN v. Bell, and see what rights for consumers have been affirmed by our esteemed judges.

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A court win for bloggers. Like me!

sound like meSo with all the media whoring over the last couple of weeks, I have neglected to tell you all sorts of interesting stuff. You may have heard that Bill C-11 cruised through the Senate and received Royal Assent. Ugh. When it actually comes into force I’ll write about it again. Oh, and here’s a very interesting article about C-11’s effects on isoHunt.com, with juicy quotes from some internet lawyer guy.

But what I missed that I really wanted to write about was a very interesting and important case that came out of the Federal Court of Canada, that is a real help for bloggers and other online journalists. Better late than never. Let’s take a close look at Warman v. Fournier (PDF), which allows for some significant copying of content on the internet. Yippee!

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