The National Post has an editorial today, Striking down the iPod tax. This post just adds the footnotes.

The January 10th decision was Apple Canada Inc. v. Canadian Private Copying Collective, 2008 FCA 9 (CanLII).

The decison of the Copyright Board under review was Private Copying 2008-2009, Re, 58 C.P.R. (4th) 446, 2007 CarswellNat 2100 (also on the Copyright Board website.)

The 2004 decision of the Federal Court of Appeal was Canadian Private Copying Collective v. Canadian Storage Media Alliance, 2004 FCA 424 (CanLII), [2005] 2 F.C.R. 654, 247 D.L.R. (4th) 193, 329 . . . [more]

I don’t think Slaw has mentioned the International Judicial Monitor, an “international law resource for judiciaries, justice sector professionals, and the rule of law community around the world.” Published, or refreshed, every two months or so, this issue of the Monitor has a feature piece on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and notes on a dozen judicial developments in as many countries. There’s also a useful page of “international resources.”

The Monitor is published by the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C. . . . [more]

Quoted from the press release:

VANCOUVER, Jan. 11 /CNW/ – The Law Society is deeply saddened by the
passing of former Chief Justice Allan McEachern on January 10.

“Judges and lawyers will remember the clarity and precision of his judgments, his professional courtesy, his humility, his capacity for hard work and, above all, his sense of humour,” said John Hunter, QC, President of the Law Society.

“One of Mr. McEachern’s greatest achievement was to open up the courts not just to the people of BC, but to the entire world via the internet,” Mr. Hunter said. “In 1996, he

In order to compensate for the many frivolous places I’ve sent you on Friday, I offer you something much more earnest today — and something to do with laws. The laws, however, are those of the universe and not of any of our dull sublunary jurisdictions. And the earnest thing is a giant, free physics book available online in PDF.

The author, Christoph Schiller, got his doctorate in physics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and says that he believes “exploring physics is more fun that making love.” Hmmn.

Still and all, when you’re not doing the latter, you . . . [more]

I often consult WestlaweCarswell for electronic access to the Index to Canadian Legal Literature. I use the search template designed for that purpose. Usually I rely on general keyword searches. But today, since my research related to a specific piece of legislation, I thought I would use the “Legislation” field. Unfortunately, my various search term combinations did not easily yield the results I sought.

Here is a hypothetical example to illustrate my point:

If I entered Criminal Code 123 into the “Legislation” field, I got one hit, which actually related to s. 123 of another act and a different section

Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog has a great post about what we will probably see happening in 2008 in the Web 2.0 realm. Here are some of the more interesting predictions:

• As social media begins to mature and new online stars emerge, a new industry of Web 2.0 talent agents and production companies will form to provide professional help. YouTube star Esmee Denters is a perfect example of the potential of online talents.
• Ownership of data contributed to Web 2.0 sites becomes a growing PR issue. I like this quote of Hinchcliffe’s: “the more control you give up, the more

Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright.

The New York Times is speculating that the big ISP’s may be getting ready to filter what passes through their server to and from machines in the U.S., at least. Such a prying would place a premium on law firms’ either being their own ISP’s or using encrypted data when moving it via a commercial ISP. . . . [more]

Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to – could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone’s copyright.

The New York Times is speculating that the big ISP’s may be getting ready to filter what passes through their server to and from machines in the U.S., at least. Such a prying would place a premium on law firms’ either being their own ISP’s or using encrypted data when moving it via a commercial ISP. . . . [more]

Via Michael Geist:

The CBA is reporting a security breach of their computer system:

An audit of the CBA online web systems has revealed unauthorized third party access to the system during the recent holiday period.

Immediate steps were taken to further enhance the security of the site, and those whose records were potentially affected are being notified of this unauthorized activity.

The CBA takes the privacy of members very seriously and has taken appropriate steps to ensure that this type of incident does not happen again.

Michael quotes them as telling members:

Your records may have been affected

Three or four times in the last week I have had discussions with various people on the issue of the versions of copies of court cases that are provided to the court in a book of authorities – are you required to provide a photocopy of the case from an official (or unofficial) print version of the case or is it acceptable to provide a printout of an online version from one of the commercial databases or from CanLII?

A decade or more ago – when online versions of judgments did not always format well or may not have . . . [more]

The Law Librarian Blog today drew attention to the relatively new Best Practices for Legal Education Blog, “a site [that] was created with two goals in mind: 1) to create a useful web-based source of information on current reforms in legal education (…) ; and 2) to create a place where those interested in the future of legal education can freely exchange ideas, concerns, and opinions.”

Contributors are from the United States and the UK (or Glasgow anyway – is Scotland still part of the UK? In, out, half in, half out, sovereignly associated with the Brits?). . . . [more]

This just in, Lexis/Quicklaw is intending to charge $50 per head for Academic Access at Canadian Law Schools starting next September.

So a Canadian Law School with 500 students would be charged $25000 starting September 2008.

I’m going to save my comments for later. . . . [more]