A recent social media trend that has exploded in the past couple years is the use of “short-form videos.” Short-form videos are short in length—typically ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes—and feature a wide variety of topics
On August 16, 2023, a federal trial court in Texas ruled on a copyright matter involving a factual video that went viral on social media. At the motion to dismiss stage, the issue the court faced was whether the affirmative
Many companies post photos on social media in order to promote their businesses. A recent federal court ruling demonstrates how simple it is to become subject to a copyright infringement lawsuit because of the background of the photo. (Petersen
We have previously written on how expensive it can be to copy photos found on social media and use them for commercial purposes, as a result of copyright infringement claims. On October 3, 2022, the Ninth Circuit explored a few
The Southern District of New York recently considered whether the unlicensed embedding of a video originally posted to a social media platform constituted copyright infringement. The case, Nicklen v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., et al., No. 20-10300 (S.D.N.Y. July 30, 2021), concerned the re-posting of a copyrighted video of a starving polar bear, taken by Paul Nicklen and posted to his social media accounts. After Nicklen posted the video, it went viral. Sinclair Broadcasting wrote an article about the video, embedding in the article the Nicklen video. As a result of the embedding a reader of the article would view a still image from the Nicklen video regardless of whether the reader clicked to play the video. Nicklen claimed that the display of the still image from the Nicklen video infringed the copyright in the video. Sinclair Broadcasting filed a motion to dismiss claiming that the embedding was allowed under the so-called “server rule” or, in the alternative, constituted fair use. Judge Jed Rakoff denied the motion to dismiss rejecting the server rule and declining to consider the fair use defense at this early stage of the case.
Whether you are a crypto guru or not, you have likely heard about NFTs. The three-letter acronym, NFT, stands for “Non-Fungible Token”. NFTs are the centre of attention right now because of high-profile sales, such as $70 million for digital artwork, $2.5 million for Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, and more than $230 million spent buying and trading digital collectibles of NBA highlights. Copyright issues are emerging as some artwork and tweets are being tokenized into NFTs without the copyright owner’s consent. To explore copyright in the digital space of NFTs, a basic understanding of NFTs is first required.
On Wednesday, April 14, 2021, the Canadian government launched a consultation on “a Modern Copyright Framework for Online Intermediaries”, seeking comments from the public until May 31. The goal of this consultation is to “ensure that Canada’s copyright framework for online intermediaries reflects this evolving digital world.” Alongside the announcement of this consultation, the government released a paper entitled “Consultation on a Modern Copyright Framework for Online Intermediaries” (the Paper). The Paper provides a background for this consultation and outlines four potential avenues for copyright reform.
Across the world, as digital companies’ advertising revenues climb, traditional news organizations’ revenues fall. As a result, many traditional news organizations, like broadcasters and newspapers, are going out of business. The public’s appetite for journalism, however, has not waned. If anything, the public needs reliable news sources more than ever in this era of “fake news” and internet-borne misinformation. Often it is the very digital platforms that share news organizations’ content that are perceived as putting news organizations out of business.
Governments around the world are contemplating various policies and legislation to save struggling traditional news organizations. Many of these solutions contemplate tying the fortunes of ailing news organizations to those of thriving digital platforms like social media companies. For example, Australia has been in long-standing disputes with large tech companies about its proposed law that would require big tech companies to pay news organizations for use of their content.
Recently, the first proposed legislation to tackle this problem in Canada was tabled in the Senate in the form of a private members bill, Bill S-225.
In the last month of 2020, Canadian courts decided two proceedings involving alleged copyright infringement and social media platforms. Both proceedings were small scale and involved foreign copyright holders. One proceeding was heard by the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal (BCCRT) and the other was heard by the Federal Court of Canada (FC) under its simplified procedure for small claims.
We have previously written about the lawsuits that can result from unauthorized uses of photographs, but on November 2, 2020, a federal trial court in New York issued a ruling regarding use of a photo from a social media site that was “fair use” under the copyright laws. (Boesen, v. United Sports Publications, Ltd., 20-CV-1552 (ARR) (SIL) (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 2, 2020).