Research Works Act pulled as Elsevier bows to boycott pressure

For the last month, the academic publishing industry has been the latest battlefield over American copyright law. In December 2011, the US Congress introduced the controversial Research Works Act, which aimed to reverse the National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy of requiring academic research papers funded by its federal grants to be made open access one year after its publication. In short, the RWA would require that all parties with rights to the papers in question (including publishers) come to an agreement before a paper could be made open access. In effect, this would allow publishers to unilaterally prevent papers published in their journals from becoming open access.

Although this has been attempted several times before, this iteration of the Act has drawn the greatest controversy and criticism to date. Publishers supported the bill through the Association of American Publishers, an industry lobby group representing intellectual property interests of their members.

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Lawful Access: Reviewing the Bill C-30 Controversy

On February 14^th, the government finally re-tabled Bill C-30, long referred to as the ‘lawful access’ legislation and now re-introduced as the “Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act” or the short and controversial title of “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act”. Commentators such as Michael Geist and the University of Toronto’s Lisa Austin have spent the past weeks and months pointing out the potential privacy issues raised by the Bill, and the false equivalencies being used to promote it. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple v Samsung: This Time It’s Global

“The United States district court is a public institution, and the workings of litigation must be open to public view,” Justice Alsup wrote in an October order in Oracle America, Inc v. Google Inc. Yet this is not the approach of U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh and U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal, who have not only granted many of Apple and Samsung’s sealing motions, but in some cases have gone even further. During an October hearing on the proposed injunction, Koh was unprompted when she asked Apple and Samsung if they wanted to seal the courtroom.

This level of secrecy prevents academics, lawyers, and other curious bystanders from the cottage industry of prognosticating the results of the trial. Perhaps the best alternative is to look at the recent decision by the German courts applying EU law in an effort to draw some conclusions that could apply to the American ruling. Read the rest of this entry »

Is SOPA Dead?

The story of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sister act, Protect IP Act (PIPA) has been an intriguing and increasingly polarizing one. As Sarit wrote a few days ago, the increasing pressure from tech companies has forced the White House to come out against certain provisions, such as the DNS blocking provision in SOPA and other measures that would “tamper” with the underlying security measures of internet infrastructure. Read the rest of this entry »

The End of the Internet?

Tension between the interests of copyright holders and the accessibility and openness of the Internet is not a new phenomenon – Napster anyone? However, a potentially game-changing new development in online intellectual property and copyright law is currently making its way through the United Stages legislature. The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in October of this year. The Act was given hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee on November 16, 2011; its counterpart in the Senate, the PROTECT-IP Act, was introduced in May of this year and has since been passed. Read the rest of this entry »

Who Gets Burned When the Dragon Stirs? – Ramifications of Stricter Patent Protection in China

Jameson Berkow in The National Post recently voiced a concern not unfamiliar to those who have seen the cover of any Economist magazine in the past eight years – the dangers of China’s evolving economy, in particular their approach to patent protection.

The article argues that, “China … has intentionally maintained a lax intellectual property enforcement regime for decades, waiting until its internal invention industry had become strong enough to warrant something more robust.” Read the rest of this entry »

Apple Manages to Frustrates Developers…Again!

Apple has launched a new requirement, which will require sandboxing of all Mac App Store applications, starting next March. This move again will frustrate developers, although Apple claims its main motivation for such a move is to provide safety. Apple has had a unique relationship with many app developers in the past, providing a superb launch point and audience for their products, but also frustrating them with restrictive and sometimes anti-competitive strategies. Read the rest of this entry »

SCC Judgement: Hyperlinking to Content Does Not Constitute Republication

Last Wednesday (October 19th, 2011), the Supreme Court of Canada released its judgement on Crookes v. Newton (2011 SCC 47). The case focused on whether or not liability existed when one post hyperlinks to allegedly defamatory material on the internet. The court’s decision was succinctly summarized by Justice Abella, who stated, “I would conclude that a hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as “publication” of the content to which it refers.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Federal Government Introduces New Copyright Reform Bill

Last week the Canadian federal government introduced Bill C-11, entitled An Act to Amend the Copyright Act. Since 2005, there had been three failed attempts at copyright reforms by the federal government. The last such attempt was Bill C-32 introduced in June 2010 during the last parliament, which died on the order paper when the federal election was called last spring. The new Bill C-11 is identical to Bill C-32. The following are some of the highlights from the bill: Read the rest of this entry »

Do the copycat Apple stores in China harm Apple?

News of fake Apple stores in China sparked a media frenzy last month, with calls of massive intellectual property infringement. Of the five fake stores in Kunming, two were shut down, but for lacking official business licenses, not for who they were pretending to be. More interestingly, according to reports, the Apple products sold at these stores were the real deal. That these stores were and are selling real Apple products complicates the question of whether there are legal claims to be had for copyright infringement. Read the rest of this entry »