Since I flew in only an hour back I haven’t had time to catch up on my reading, but five items on the feeds caught my eye: . . . [more]

Frobisher, 1577It’s Thanksgiving Day in Canada, so we’ll be feasting with family or just taking it easy. We’ll get back to regular posting tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, a bit of Canadian bragging: The first thanksgiving celebration by Europeans in North America took place in what is now Canada. The intrepid but not very lucky Martin Frobisher sailed from England for the Eastern Arctic and arrived in 1578 with 300 Cornish miners looking for gold. It’s said that they held a formal thanksgiving ceremony, which I can well understand, given that they survived the passage. Sadly, they returned at . . . [more]

Elections are on everybody’s minds these days.

We have our Canadian Federal elections coming up in two days. But it was the American elections that Michael Moore had in mind when he made his new movie, Slacker Uprising.

The $2 million film covers the 2004 American election, where Moore visits 62 cities over 42 days in an attempt to get George W. Bush out of office.

But what made the film unique was that Moore chose to release the film online – for free. He claims this is the first time this has been legally been done for a . . . [more]

Kenneth Crews, Director, Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University, has prepared a “Study on Copyright Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives” for WIPO. It’s now available at: http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=109192.It is a lengthy document, 434 pages, discussing issues from the foundation of library exceptions to their prevalence, scope and structure, and the nature of the various exceptions in the copyright legislations of all WIPO member countries (including Canada.) The first 70+ pages is a substantive discussion and the remaining pages are excerpts from legislation discussed in the document.Lesley . . . [more]

I’m pleased to report that Lesley Harris will be joining Slaw as an occasional contributor.

Lesley is a lawyer, consultant and author who works on Canadian, U.S., and international copyright law, licensing and digital property issues. Based in Washington D.C, she’s a member of the bar in Ontario and is the author of several books including “Canadian Copyright Law” published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson and “Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians”.

Lesley joined the world of blogging in the Spring and now moderates 3 blogs (http://www.copyrightlaws.com/, http://www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com/, http://www.licensingdigitalcontent.blogspot.com/ ), and uses blogs to teach her online . . . [more]

With much fanfare, media attention and crashing of computers, Canada’s Do NOT Call List Today went live on September 30, 2008. At leat that was the first day for consumers to add themselves to the list (at https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/).

The scheme really isn’t live yet and the barrage of annoying calls I received last night alone is evidence of that. It really appears that telemarketers are trying to squeeze in as many calls as possible. The regulations establishing the list give a telemarketer thirty days to get an updated list and it is only then that they cannot call you . . . [more]

I’m something of a pack rat. Not the worst of accumulators, mind, because I do bag and bid bye-bye to bunches of stuff when some implicit limit is reached. And part of me, contrariwise, is a minimalist, who wouldn’t mind if all the world were by Bauhaus out of ItalInteriors. So I’m fascinated by Jay Walker’s library, because it might be me, so to speak, if I’d saved my pennies and invested in better stocks than was in fact the case.

Who’s Jay Walker, I hear you ask. He’s a geek entrepreneur who founded Priceline.com and Walker Digital, and . . . [more]

The International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is an intergovernmental organization of 18 states aimed at helping developing countries establish the rule of law and good governance practices. Canada, though CIDA, has been working with IDLO in Afghanistan since 2002.

Readers interested in issues of law in developing countries might consult IDLO’s publications, where you will also find a library of links to relevant online resources (journals, newsletters, newspapers and news agencies). . . . [more]

Opportunities for learning and professional development are quickly expanding as it becomes easier for everyone to develop and add their own content to the Internet.

Earlier this week Mitch Joel, President of marketing firm Twist Image, put together Pixelated, a free full-day online conference with some of the world’s leading speakers on the topic of how business is changing including Sir Ken Robinson, Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, Avinash Kaushik, Chris Brogan and many more. What is incredible is it is all freely available video from around the web, and he has posted it to his blog.

His . . . [more]

You can now stay abreast of what Osgoode Hall Law School’s law library is buying thanks to a new blog that lists purchases catalogued within the last week. Happily, each item is hyperlinked to its page in the catalogue. And, of course, there’s an RSS feed. . . . [more]

I spent some time in September at the local landfill depositing the post modern garage sale furniture that used to furnish my world. This post from The Court caught my eye due to it’s engaging title.

An important issue in the case is the way that the privacy interest over Patrick’s garbage is characterized. The trial judge characterized the interest as informational in nature: the contents of one’s garbage may tend to reveal intimate details of one’s personal life choices. On appeal, however, the interest was characterized as territorial:
Patrick has a privacy interest in objects left in opaque plastic

I had everything planned for this week’s column. But, as with many things in life, you can’t always plan for the unexpected. So, since my last column, there have been two very significant events that have taken place in the US with regard to the legal process outsourcing (“LPO”) industry. This week’s column is dedicated to those events.

Significant event number 1…..

Previously, the Bar committees in New York City, San Diego County, and Los Angeles County have ruled, that US lawyers may outsource legal work to foreign lawyers (or non-lawyers) outside the US, provided the US lawyer (a) supervises . . . [more]