It all started when Lenz posted a YouTube video of her then-toddler-aged son dancing while Prince’s song “Let’s Go Crazy” played in the background, and Universal used copyright claims to get the link disabled. The case brought to the court is: whether a rightsholder can use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to take down an obvious fair […]

The Andy Warhol decision released in May of this year reflects the US court’s latest interpretation of the fair use doctrine, and sparked controversy of what constitutes the first factor in the fair use doctrine, namely, “the purpose and character of the use”. The differences between the majority and dissent opinions highlight the tension between […]

One historical copyright case that I was familiar with prior to this course was centered around the theft of trivia. After taking the course, I am now looking at this case with a different perspective and wonder how it would be decided under current Canadian Law. Fred Worth from California published two books of trivia. […]

History of AI on YouTube Since 2016, YouTube has used the power of AI to assist in its primary service: creating an algorithm that decides which videos to promote to viewers (1). This is done by assessing a viewer’s satisfaction with the video played based on factors such as watch time, engagement, and their personal […]

I am quite active on TikTok and recently came across a huge growing trend of “Disney AI”. Dozens of adorable images created by users in ways that resonated with them. With its growing popularity, I became intrigued. I too took a deep dive into seeing how any image in your camera role could be generated […]

“Intellectually Yours”: Navigating IP in the Modern World https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bE9wgo7_jS7l8L9lvsoVdq3pxNXb5utZ/view?usp=drive_web   Hello IP friends! We hope you are all doing well. As you study for exams we invite you to listen to our Podcast titled “Intellectually Yours” which we created as our Paper/Post/Presentation. “Intellectually Yours” is an exploration of the intersections of law and culture. With […]

While I was in London Drugs looking for a study snack, I came across these couple of boardgames, “Canada-opoly” and “British Columbia-opoly”… does anyone know the story behind them?! They’re made by a company called “Offset Media” based in Victoria, BC.  Offset Media sell other kinds of “opolies” including Bible-opoly, Fort Mcmurray-opoly, and Santa-opoly. They […]

Excuse me for a minute, while I write about some of my favorite things: Outdoor apparel, Intellectual Property Law and Paleontology  “You will never look at the world in the same way after you study IP law” remarked  a family friend (and now retired entertainment lawyer)  when I told him about my upcoming enrollment in […]

Background.  The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, which is administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), serves to establish global standards for the protection of intellectual property rights (Sirleaf, 2021). The agreement outlines rules to ensure that the safeguarding and enforcement of these rights do not hinder international trade, and works to […]

“Murda on the Beat, so it’s not nice”, “We got London on the Track”, “Young chop on the beat”. If you have listened to popular music in the past decade, particularly hip-hop, you have likely heard recurring phrases such as these included at the start of a song. These clips are known as “producer tags” […]

*This post is submitted as my final project for the course* AGAINST INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY         In this essay, I argue that intellectual property (“IP”) cannot be justified by property rights alone, as it is based on artificially created scarcity. IP rights are rights to intangible things, which, by definition, cannot be scarce. […]

Happy Taco Tuesday! While munching on some delicious tacos for dinner tonight, I ran across an interesting endeavor by Taco Bell to liberate the phrase ‘Taco Tuesday’ for restaurants nationwide. Recently, Taco Bell successfully resolved its dispute with a New Jersey based restaurant, Gregory’s Restaurant & Bar to abandon its trademark covering the phrase in […]

Hi all! For my participation component, I did a mini presentation on college athlete NILs in the States. To access via Google Slides, click the image below:  

Generative AI raises a host of interesting legal issues. An area of large controversy involves the creation of large language models to train systems such as ChatGPT. Professor Festinger has mentioned the case of  Margaret Atwood, specially the world-renowned author’s response when she found out pirated copies of her books were used to train AI. In […]

I got intrigued by the intersection of NFTs and IP: what intellectual property rights in the underlying work are granted to an NFT owner? Do NFT transactions impose particular IP infringement risks? How could creators and IP owners better protect their IP rights in the NFT world?     What are NFTs? NFTs (non-fungible tokens) […]