In copyright, you cannot own a fact. In our earlier classes we learned this in Maltz v Witterick, where the Federal Court held that “the use of common historical facts is not copyright infringement.” Winkler v Hendley builds on this, and further holds that an author who publishes what is said to be a nonfiction […]

It has been established in Canada that sports broadcasting is subject to copyright law, but what about the substantive data that is the product of sport? In CBC v SODRAC the Supreme Court of Canada employed a purposive construction of the Copyright Act, specifically s. 3(1)(d), holding that reproduction rights remain exclusively with the copyright […]

Press Play to Create Vibe for optimal viewing The 18 Card Expansion Deck Project Statement For this project, I chose to take one of my favourite intellectual properties, Pokémon, and mash it up with key themes from our course. The result is an 18-card “IP Law Expansion Pack” for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Each […]

We know that a painting attracts copyright protection, but there is no copyright in a particular pose, arrangement, or composition (in the artistic sense). This is for good reason, of course, or else we would probably have long run out of colours, subjects, and settings to depict in art.  But this reminded me of a […]