The Department of Canadian Heritage has released my colleague Prof. Pina D’Agostino’s report, “Fair Dealing after CCH.” It is available in HTML online and in downloadable PDF. She warns against ad hoc attempts to fix this aspect of copright law alone, whether through some legislative implementation of the CCH factors or via a borrowing of foreign provisions. Industries can and should work to develop “best practices” concerning fair dealing, which can guide behaviour and, potentially, give industry “advice” to the court in future cases.

[via CultureLibre.ca] . . . [more]

Someone at the Ontario Ministry of Engergy and Infrastructure has been pumping bookmarks up to delicious.com (a service formerly known as del.icio.us) under the username of mei.govonca. They’re up to 314 as of yesterday. Nothing wrong with this, of course: I doubt that anyone is going to glean information that would otherwise be secret from scanning the list of bookmarks, nearly all of which are tagged “stakeholder” in addition to whatever other labels they may have. Still, it feels odd to find a government ministry making use of a service outside of the firewall like this.

It might be . . . [more]

As you’ll notice from his first post below, Slaw has added another contributor from outside Canada. This time we’ve picked up a UK correspondent in Nick Holmes.

Nick, as you might already know, is the founder of infolaw, and a well respected legal blogger, having published his very popular Binary Law since February, 2004.

We are very pleased to welcome Nick as an occasional contributor to Slaw, and hoping he’ll morph into one of our weekly regulars. (hint, hint…) As Connie Crosby pointed out to me when I first started blogging, guys like Nick Holmes and Scott Vine . . . [more]

I am an Olympics fan-girl, and have been absorbing as much television coverage as possible. What I find new this Olympics are all the references by reporters to blogs written by athletes. I was a bit surprised that the athletes would be into blogging, but in a CBC interview following his Olympic competition this weekend, Kyle Shewfelt said that he likes to write and he finds writing about his day of training to be a good way to unwind and “let it all out”.

And write he does! I had a look at his personal blog, simply called Kyle Shewfelt . . . [more]

I’m a devoted reader of the Law Librarian Blog, a source of useful insight on new publications, trends, tips and tricks in research/instruction/tools, and best of all, pointers to great cases like this one. . . . [more]

It had to happen. . . . [more]

You might have read the title of this post and supposed that it was going to be about fundamental legal principles, but as so often is the case, the title is misleading. (I confess to having fun with the creation of titles to posts.) But actually this is about food, the organic kind. You might have noticed the organic section of your local grocery store seems to claim more and more space every time you visit and you may also have noticed all the different claims being made and attached to food: organically grown, made with organic ingredients, organic . . . [more]

First, two confessions: I’m not a fan of the Olympics. And the problem raised in today’s fillip had never once occurred to me before today. I know which of the two is the more shameful as far as I’m concerned.

I find the nationalism in the Olympics more than I can handle. If I were Kronos or Zeus — or even just the Dactyl Heracles (the daemon who founded the games) — I’d have everyone compete wearing orange jumpsuits, or perhaps nothing at all, and punish any mention of a country with one of those great olympian spells that . . . [more]

Patricia O’Brien, newly appointed to the post of Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and U.N. Legal Counsel, is the first woman to hold that office. O’Brien, who is Irish, has served the Irish government in a number of capacities, including Senior Legal Adviser to the Attorney General and Legal Adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Ms. O’Brien obtained a B.A. and an M.A. from Trinity College, Dublin, and she holds an LL.B. from the University of Ottawa. Sadly, though the U.N. press release announces (link above) this last fact, the Irish Times omits it, saying simply “Ms O’Brien was educated . . . [more]

Make your dreams come true….

♫ When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
When you wish upon a star
Your dream comes true .. ♫

Music by Leigh Harline, lyrics by Ned Washington.

Despite all the assistance from technology and the labour-saving devices available today, I don’t believe that most of us are really any closer to achieving our in-our-heart-of-heart’s dreams…you know what I mean…the ones that you think about at quiet moments..such as at dawn or gazing into a sunset.

I have talked to many lawyers …many many lawyers – who in the words . . . [more]

Today is a holiday in many, if not most, places in Canada. How and whether this holiday comes to be is itself perhaps a significant portrait of the country itself: in some provinces it is a statutory holiday; in other provinces it is a civic holiday, and up to municipalities to name and proclaim; in still others it is no holiday at all but business as usual. The thing has various names: Natal Day, Simcoe Day, British Columbia Day… The following chart from CanadaInfo will give at least some sense of order (if not peace and good government):

. . . [more]

This fillip is about law, oddly, but a law far more profound than any made by parliaments. I speak of Muphry’s Law.

Well, no, actually, I didn’t, but thanks for asking. Muphry’s [sic] Law was created sixteen years ago by John Bangsund in The Society of Editors Newsletter and given expression thus:

(a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written; (b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book; (c) the stronger the sentiment