A recent judgment of the England and Wales High Court, Kaschke v Gray & Anor [2010] EWHC 690 (QB), dealt with a potential libel that occurred in a post on a blog, Labourhome.org, that opens its facilities to “Labour grassroots” to “discuss the issues important to them.” As OutLaw.com, which has the story, says

Hilton claimed in his defence against the libel charge that, though he ran the site, he did not edit or vet the articles and should qualify for the same safe harbour that was granted to search engines or ISPs.

That safe harbour is granted under . . . [more]

As of April Fool’s day, the U.K. Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) has changed its copyright license to something that harmonizes well with a Creative Commons license. After a report on how the public reacted to the traditional Crown copyright notice, OPSI began to develop a license modelled on those used by Creative Commons.

The new license already operates on the impressive data.gov.uk site, the launch of which we reported on Slaw back in January. The following paragraph occurs near the end of the new, plain language license:

Creative Commons

These terms have been aligned to be interoperable

. . . [more]

A recent small claims case in NS has reinforced the point that if you are thinking of getting a tattoo you might want to apply a spell-checker or perhaps you might want to stop using your spell checker so that your eye might be better trained to spot spelling mistakes. In this case the individual saw the preview of the word and the stencil on her arm where “beatiful” (aka beautiful) was spelled incorrectly. The adjudicator ruled that “…the Claimant is the author of her own misfortune. The Claimant saw the phrase on the computer, on the stencil and then . . . [more]

The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently posted a policy on its website concerning how it interprets and applies section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) when it receives an inquiry or complaint...

We have not heard much about this lately, partly because a summary judgment in 2007 stated that Novell owned the Unix code. A jury confirmed last week that SCO had not acquired the copyright to Unix from Novell in an asset purchase agreement.

The significance of this to the world at large is that Linux was derived from Unix. SCO launched a long standing battle claiming it owned Unix, and thus had rights to certain code within Linux, and thus the right to be compensated for Linux use. 

Apparently, SCO is not yet giving up though – there is some . . . [more]

I happened to be looking at currency dates for a section of the Criminal Code today and saw a big bold New heading. To my glee the New heading prefaced a note about shading on the Department of Justice Laws website. The site has a new feature showing provisions that are not yet in force as shaded. Well done DOJ!

The frequently asked questions page describes it like so:

What does the shading of provisions mean?
A new feature has been added to the consolidated Laws on the Justice Laws Web site: provisions in original enactments that are not

. . . [more]

This week the biotech world was consumed with questions about genes, and patents, and patents on genes.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet issued a summary judgment ruling (pdf) that Myriad Genetics’ patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes were invalid, as were the patents on Myriad’s tests using those genes. Meh. The commentary (including here at Slaw) has been interesting and the public airing of patent policy is much needed and generally productive; but I don’t think the ruling is that big a deal.

In a case of superior serendipity, last week also marked the ten-year anniversary . . . [more]

The New Scientist carried an article recently on how courts’ use of fingerprints “is on the cusp of a much-needed revolution.” First used to obtain a conviction in Argentina in 1892, fingerprint evidence has long been the paragon of forensic science. Typically, experts will testify that prints taken from a suspect are “a match” with those found at the scene of a crime, offering, however, no “error rate” to accompany their statement, as would be the case if, say, DNA evidence were given. Yet, as the article shows, significant errors are indeed possible.

The problem is not so much one . . . [more]

The situation on privacy expectations of e-mails for employees continues to develop both in Canada and the U.S. A unanimous decision released by the New Jersey Supreme Court this past week in Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc. adds to this area.

Prior to leaving the employer to file a discrimination suit, the employee exchanged 7-8 e-mails with her lawyer through a personal Yahoo! e-mail account through the company’s laptop computer. The employer then retrieved these e-mails through the Temporary Internet Files cache and used them in preparation for the suit. The trial court initially ruled that the employee had . . . [more]

This bit of news from Techdirt had me smiling until the truth began to dawn on me. Developers in Texas are taking a page from the sale of digital goods and trying to convince people to accept their claims to eternal payments on the basis of, it seems, creative work:

“Just like authors who write books and musicians who write songs that will be enjoyed for generations to come, those who improve property are also engaged in the creative process, and the economics of the transaction should reflect that reality,” . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has granted leave to appeal to the plaintiff in the British Columbia case of Crookes v Newton 2009 BCCA 392.

The Court blog has a summary of the facts and of the appeal judgment.

Basically, the question is whether someone who posts a link to a defamatory publication has him/her/itself published a defamation. The BCCA held 2:1 that in some circumstances the link could be defamatory — but only if in context the poster of the link called particular attention to it and indicated agreement. The majority held (as had the trial court) that . . . [more]

What is in a date? Well if it is April 1, people might think that you are kidding. There are some really funny items floating around the legal blogosphere today.

Why would a government ever make April 1 a coming into force date for legislation? What comes into force in Alberta today?

• Gunshot and Stab Wound Mandatory Disclosure Act (pdf)
• Sections 77 and 91 of the Alberta Land Stewardship Act (pdf)

April 1, 2007 was the in force date for the Fuel Tax Act. Sections 3 to 6, 12(a), 16 to 19, 21 to 23, 25, 31 and . . . [more]