The Supreme Court of British Columbia issued an order requiring Google to remove websites from its worldwide index. The dispute involved links to the website of a company that had been found to have stolen trade secrets from a competitor and used unfair competition tactics to lure customers into purchasing the copied products. The court order is unprecedented for Canada as it forces Google to remove links anywhere in the world, rather than only from the search results available through Google.ca. See also M. Geist Blog. See also Global FoE
(1) This case is an application of the principles laid out in BMG Canada v John Doe (see below) with respect to disclosure orders. Here, the claimant sought the identities of 2,000 users from TekSavvy, an independent ISP. Voltage argued that by downloading movies produced by their company via P2P file-sharing networks, these users infringed copyright in those works and their identities were needed to start legal proceedings. (2) Although the Court expressed concerns about “copyright trolls”, the disclosure order was ultimately granted because the claimant showed that it had a bona fides claim and privacy rights of the users did not outweigh the interests of the copyright holders. However, numerous safeguards against possible invasions of privacy were attached. For example, users’ information could not be released to...
The dispute involved links to the website of a company that had been found to have stolen trade secrets from a competitor and used unfair competition tactics to lure customers into purchasing the copied products. The lower court issued an injunction ordering Google to remove search results for specific websites. The Supreme Court upheld this order, that is unprecedented for Canada as it forces Google to remove links for search queries coming from anywhere in the world, rather than only from the search results available through Google.ca. See also M. Geist Blog. See also CIS Blog Post
Companies who allowed their subscribers to preview musical works via online streaming before making a purchase were found to not have infringed the copyright in those works. The Court held that these previews constitute fair dealing because 1) their purpose constitutes “research” under section 29 of the Copyright Act (e.g., research by consumers) and 2) their use is fair according to the six factors laid out in CCH Canadian v LSUC (see below).
Copyright Modernization Act, SC 2012, c 20. (1) This is an amending Act to the Copyright Act (see below). Section 31.1 expands the exemption granted by section 2.4(1)(b) of the Copyright Act and is essentially a codification of the holdings from SOCAN v CAIP (see below). Section 31.1(1) states that ISPs, provided that they are content neutral, cannot be held liable by providing any means for Internet access. The fact that “any means” for telecommunication is used instead of “the means” necessary for telecommunication, which appears in section 2.4(1)(b), signifies that this provision is intended to cover a wider range of intermediaries that provide access to third party content such as blogging, video and social networking websites. Moreover, whereas section 2.4(1)(b) is only applicable in cases where the intermediary...
This case involved hyperlinks in an online article that directed its readers to defamatory materials. The issue is whether this constituted a publication for the purposes of defamation law. For a defamation case to succeed in Canada, the plaintiff must prove that the defamatory statement is “published”. Here, the Court held that, unless the hyperlink itself communicates defamatory meaning in the context, the act of hyperlinking is so passive that it does not amount to publication. (paras 21 & 40). That is, to satisfy the publication element, the plaintiff must prove that the intermediary had “knowing involvement in the publication of the relevant words (para 21).