I’m sure that many of you noticed a brief flash in the news recently regarding Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserve and the security issues surrounding said reserve. There were many tongue in cheek references to Maple Syrup’s place in the culture of Quebec and Canada in the media and then the news cycle moved on. Alas, we here at Slaw dig deeper and try to ascertain the legal angle to such events, and it seems that Maple Syrup does indeed occupy a significant place in Canadian culture.

A rudimentary CanLII search reveals that “Maple Syrup” has appeared in court cases . . . [more]

Online advertisers intend to ignore ‘do not track’ settings set by default. Here’s a story on OutLaw.com about that practice: Advertising industry standards do not “require companies to honor DNT signals fixed by the browser manufacturers and set by them in browsers”. So much for the ‘better business’ in Better Business Bureau. ‘Better For Business…’ appears more accurate.

A very pungent description of the ‘Privacy? Never heard of it!’ world of advertising and the discussions about these standards can be found on ZDNet. (h/t David Cheifetz)

And even browsers set to ‘do not track’ will not comply with the . . . [more]

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall . . .

Maybe. But it wouldn’t be paint. There’s everything, in fact, about a blank wall that seems to require touching up, decoration, even defacing. The urge to make one’s mark in as prominent a way possible seems to be a human trait, evident from the earliest times.

How much better if the one with the urge happens to have some talent. There’s a wall painting going on not far from where I live that’s a part of a Giant Storybook Project, a collaboration between an art couple, Herakut, . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

. . . [more]

Probably not the rhetorical question that most of you want to hear

In my publication Law Librarians News I do try and source as many legal information related jobs as i can find and note them in the newsletter.

Recruiters don’t pay LLN to do so. Rather I like to keep an informal ongoing record of what jobs are available in the legal information / management / publishing sphere as a way of highlighting the way roles are perceived, advertised and change over time.

August 2012 like any other August of the last decade was dead as the proverbial dodo . . . [more]

If I had any doubt that the UK was the absolute undisputed centre of legal innovation, the past 5 days I’ve spent in London have certainly laid that to rest.

Earlier this week I came across Nigel Spencer, Director of Learning and Development – EME for Reed Smith. Nigel is constantly re-thinking the trainee model (for Canadians read: articling model) and other professional development opportunities for the firm. Fortunately, he has the freedom and support of firm management to do some truly exciting things. Thanks to Maeve Jackson for the introduction!

In particular, he has a strong desire to ensure . . . [more]

The 2012 Law Via the Internet conference took place Oct 7-9, 2012 at the Cornell University Law School in Ithaca, New York.

The conference brings together people from the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) from different countries and continents that together form the Free Access to Law Movement.

Many of the presentations are already online.

Three Australian scholars who took part in the conference, Andrew Mowbray, Philip Chung, and Graham Greenleaf, published an interesting overview of the Free Access to Law concept. Their paper, The Meaning of ‘Free Access to Legal Information’: A Twenty Year Evolution, is available on . . . [more]

Yesterday, my partner Anne-Sylvie Vassenaix-Paxton gave a talk to ALAI Canada (L’Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale) on the impact the new French HADOPI laws no. 1 and 2, have had on peer to peer file sharing and protection of personal data under French law.

The acronym stands for the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet (HADOPI), a body which co-ordinates a variety of legal measures against illegal downloading including sanctions against parents of downloaders.

Two points are interesting from a North American perspective. The French Constitutional Council threw out a draft of . . . [more]

Work to reform the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct of Quebec lawyers is underway. A preliminary draft is currently being distributed to members of the Quebec Bar Association for comments by October 27, 2012.

I had an interesting experience that reinforced something that I knew but forgot to apply and consequently allowed a situation to drift sideways.

Here’s the scenario. You have an elected Board of a dozen partners who are faced with making an important decision. They have known for some months that this matter was on the table and have had some informal discussions amongst themselves and even amongst other partners in the firm. Each came to the table declaring to the others that they were unbiased and remained open to making their decision in the best interests of the firm.

The . . . [more]

Virtual delight echoed in tweets, posts, and emails in my corner of the web late Wednesday, upon the release of Judge Baer’s opinion in Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust 11 CV 6351 (S.D.N.Y.). Very shortly after its release, Prof. James Grimmelmann posted the opinion on Scribd.

Briefly, for those unfamiliar, the plaintiffs and defendants had each sought summary judgment in respect of the plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claim. HathiTrust and related university defendants saw near-entire success in their summary judgment motions, failing only on a standing question not consequential to the result. The outcome: Fair use protects the defendants’ participation . . . [more]

Yesterday at the Law via the Internet conference, Clay Shirky, author of “Here Comes Everybody” and “Cognitive Surplus” described how people were using RapGenius.com to do more than explain rap lyrics…they were using it to explain law.

Here’s an example: 

Will “the crowd” develop an interest in annotating the law?

There is a pretty exciting project underway in Quebec that has built a platform for just that purpose.

In the meantime, go here to read more about Clay Shirky’s presentation and to watch the video.

Finally, if you want to try your hand at annotating Canadian law, we’ve . . . [more]