Back in 1964 Sol Gillis of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia designed the tartan you see to your left for the State of Maine; Jane Holmes, a Mainer (? Maine-liner?, Maineite? …), claims she got the rights to the design in 1993 and has been ordering the cloth from Scotland since that time. But now L.L.Bean is selling an “American Tartan Shirt” with that very design, and Ms Holmes is not best pleased. She’s sued L.L.Bean, which claims that the design is now in the public domain. (See the CBC story.)

It seems that the fact the copyright to the state . . . [more]

The Creative Commons folks have released version 3 of the copyright licensing package. A main feature of the new version is the disentanglement of the U.S.-specific license from the generic license useful in other jurisdictions. This aspect is not of critical importance here in Canada, perhaps, because like 30 or so other countries we have available a CC license set “ported” to our law. But version 6 addresses other matters that could be of interest to Canadians, such as moral rights, royalty collecting societies, exclusion of endorsement, etc. These are explained in some detail on the CC site. Presumably . . . [more]

I recently polled some of the larger Toronto law firm law libraries regarding their holdings and use of Halsbury’s Laws of England (and the recently published Halsbury’s Laws of Canada).

Readers of SLAW might be interested to know:

Halsbury’s Canadian Converter

Only 3 of 16 law libraries continue to subscribe to the (green) “Canadian converter” volumes for the (old) 3rd edition (and two of those law libraries were likely to cancel). Although many thought it was a useful service, almost all responding noted that it was rarely used (and difficult to use since it was necessary to “translate” the . . . [more]

I am currently sitting in Jim Milles’ session at Podcamp Toronto. He has discussed his new podcasting regime at the University at Buffalo, recording interviews of faculty and visiting professors on papers they are working on. . . . [more]

Connie is at camp today! Specifically Podcamp Toronto 2007. I am currently liveblogging it over at the Podcamp Toronto blog. For those of you who wish you were here, there is also livestreaming available all weekend from the wiki Schedule page. Those feeds are being edited and posted to the wiki as well.

Jim Milles and I presented a session first thing this morning called “What to Podcast”. We had a packed room of about 40+ podcasting wannabes. We ran it as a brainstorming session with the room and used my macbook projected on the screen as . . . [more]

We’ve looked a poetry before on Slaw — “Law Firms Sponsoring Poetry“, “The Lawyer as Poet“, “Creative uses for law reports“, and another Friday Fillip about doggerel — so I thought that this might be of interest to the poetasters among us. I got on to the Poetry Foundation because of a piece in the recent New Yorker, “The Moneyed Muse” by Dana Goodyear. The article talks about Ruth Lilly, the old reclusive woman who was heir to the Lilly drug company fortune, and who gave a big chunk of her billion . . . [more]

A neat video explaining the importance of preserving an open and neutral, fully accessible Internet.

Enjoy and Spread the Word . . . [more]

There is no surer sign that Spring is around the corner than spring training opening up in Florida and Arizona. This spring opens with one of the more revered records in Baseball on the verge of falling, career home runs. For those of you who are baseball fans, I’m sure you are well aware of this story, and for those who are not you have probably heard Barry Bonds referred to on occasion. Some feel that the chase for the record is tainted by the implications that are out there in regards to Mr. Bonds alleged usage of performance enhancing . . . [more]

French-Law.net is a blog by Nicolas Jondet, a PhD candidate and research assistant with the AHRC Research Centre in Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the University of Edinburgh. He’s also the web manager for the Franco-British Lawyer Society.

Despite its broad name, the blog focuses on IP/IT law.

[A shift of the old chapeau to Howard Knopf’s Excess Copyright for spotting this one.] . . . [more]

In a unanimous decision written by the Chief Justice The Supreme Court ruled in Charkaoui et. al. that the security certificate scheme violates section 7 of the Charter and is not saved by section 1. . . . [more]

That’s the slogan for a fund-raiser for the public library that some of the Bay Street firms are supporting.  The idea is – Can you spare a Toonie for the Library?  Why not? — since Lawyers Love Libraries.

February is Keep Toronto Reading Campaign month. As part of this campaign, throughout February, Toronto Public Library is asking Torontonians for loose change to help fund library services. The Chief Librarian explains it all.

It’s strictly a loose change campaign – so no tax receipts. Each $2 donation helps the Toronto Public Library Foundation enhance library collections and services.  A number . . . [more]

From the Supreme Court:

Judgment in the following appeals will be delivered at 9:45 a.m. EST on Friday, February 23, 2007:

Adil Charkaoui v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (F.C.) (30762)

Mohamed Harkat v.Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, et al. (F.C.) (31178)

Hassan Almrei v.Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (F.C.) (30929)

Hyperlinks are to case summaries on the SCC website.

The security certificate system is unanimously struck down The judgment . . . [more]