Month: July 2019

This story starts with an abandoned rail line in the ravine behind my townhouse in Toronto, which I enjoy walking along with my six year old grand-daughter who thinks of it as her “secret railway”. It is very overgrown and hasn’t been used for years, but has an interesting history. Originally incorporated as the Ontario and Quebec Railway in 1881, until recently it still existed as a legal entity even though the company was absorbed by the CPR many years ago. Continue reading “The Art in the Ravine—Can I Legally Post this Photo?”

Why is it that every time I write about Google, they have done something else to antagonize national governments? Once again they are in hot water in New Zealand, owing to Google’s proclivity to thumb its nose at small nations (and sometimes quite big nations) because, well, they’re Google and they’re big, and they’re everywhere. This time, as reported in the New Zealand media, Google violated a publication ban imposed in a high-profile murder case by circulating a British news story that identified the accused, showing his picture, and highlighting it all in a “what’s trending New Zealand” email to subscribers (a number of whom were in New Zealand). The NZ publication ban was imposed so as not to impair the accused’s right to a fair trial because of media reports that might influence a jury. Continue reading “Google‘s “Stoush” with New Zealand: Who Will Prevail?”

As it prepares to take on the task of bringing forth amendments to Canada’s copyright legislation, the Canadian government will be digesting and assessing two recent Parliamentary reports dealing with copyright issues, Shifting Paradigms, the report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the INDU Committee Report, the report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. The two reports came out within a couple of weeks of each other, and both put forward a number of recommendations, some of which were mutually inconsistent. The copyright community generally applauded Shifting Paradigms and while there were elements it supported in the INDU Committee Report, it is fair to say that it was less than enthusiastic about some of the latter’s recommendations, as I discussed in an earlier blog. However one area where both Committees shared the same wavelength was with respect to indigenous culture and the impact that copyright can have on native artists and traditional indigenous expression. Continue reading “Canadian Copyright Review: The Case of Indigenous Culture”

For a small town in British Columbia, it’s a tale of high drama and threatened lawsuits. Merritt, BC, population about 7000, is a small ranching, sawmill and tourist town situated in the Nicola Valley in the interior of the province, a 3 hour drive from Vancouver. I passed a university summer of my misspent youth there, working in the big open-pit copper mine (Craigmont) that used to be one of the mainstays of the economy. The mine is long closed and now the good citizens of Merritt use various techniques to attract visitors, such as holding an annual country music festival, (which in some years increases the population of the town some twentyfold), hosting the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and displaying a number of creative murals that grace various buildings around town, all tied to the country music theme. It’s a rollicking little town that has become caught up in the crossfire of a copyright controversy. Continue reading ““Mural, Mural on the Wall: Who’s the Owner of Them All?””