Ontario court considers tort of passing-off domain names
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently ruled that the elements of the tort of passing-off in the context of internet domain names were established in Dentec Safety Specialists Inc. v. Degil Safety Products Inc. As Oslers reports, athough this is not the first case to consider passing off in the context of domain names, it ... Read the full post ...
Nominet proposes opening .uk domain names at 2nd level
The UK domain name authority, Nominet, has commenced public consultations on opening the UK domain name space to 2LD registrations. Under the Nominet proposal, called “direct.uk”, businesses with a UK address would be allowed to register <theirname.uk>, instead of the 3LD registration <theirname.co.uk>. The proposal is that a 2LD .uk registration would come with daily monitoring ... Read the full post ...
Surfthechannel.com founder jailed over pirated material
Anton Vickerman, the founder of surfthechannel.com, has become the first person in Britain to be jailed for running a site containing links to illegally uploaded films and television programmes, reports Speechly Bircham. In a private prosecution brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), Vickerman was tried under the criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud. It ... Read the full post ...
Google and Publishers reach settlement on Digital Library Project
The Association of American Publishers and Google have settled a seven-year dispute over Google’s book digitisation program. Under the terms of the settlement, US publishers can choose to make available or choose to remove their books and journals digitized by Google for its Digital Library Project. Google will allow users to browse up to 20 ... Read the full post ...
The challenge of identifying anonymous impersonators on social networking sites
The recent case of a senior bank executive being impersonated on Twitter by an anonymous user who tweeted defamatory material highlights the difficulties of establishing the identity of anonymous impersonators, reports Minter Ellison. ... Read the full post ...
Misleading domain name breaches UK advertising standards code
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has determined that use of a misleading domain name to link to an advertisement infringes advertising standards. The Complainant, the National Health Service (NHS), alleged the ad was misleading because the URL “www.nhs-services.org.uk” implied a link with the NHS. Although the ad included text stating “This website is not connected ... Read the full post ...
Google’s Brazilian chief arrested over allegedly defamatory YouTube videos
Police arrested Google Brazil head Fabio Jose Silva Coelho on 27 September over his refusal to remove two videos on Google’s YouTube that allegedly slander, insult and defame an election candidate, IP Watch reports. This is not the first time that Google officials have been either arrested or slapped with charges for the defamatory videos ... Read the full post ...
Will New Zealand pirates really walk the plank?
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) has applied for three Internet users to be brought before the Copyright Tribunal and fined for their alleged copyright infringement, reports Baldwins. Assuming that the current applications have been made in accordance with the the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011 (within 35 days of the ... Read the full post ...
Bit Brother is watching you
According to recent research, 1,139 IP addresses are likely to be monitoring users of Bit Torrent around the world. The IP addresses belong to known copyright enforcement agencies, such as Checktor (a company which offers commercial Bit Torrent monitoring services) and Peer Media Technologies (which monitors the ebook and movie torrents of the Harry Potter series), ... Read the full post ...
Live streaming of TV not covered by US statutory retransmission license
The US Second Circuit has held that a service streaming copyrighted television programming live and over the Internet does not constitute a “cable system”, and so is not covered by the US Copyright Act § 111 statutory license for retransmission. As Kilpatrick Townsend reports, the Second Circuit found that the relevant statutory text did not clearly answer the question ... Read the full post ...
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