Free Dominion ‘copyright’ case finally won – for good!!!

February 14, 2014 — xanthippa

This is most excellent news!!!

As I reported earlier, when the court ruling for the Fourniers and Free Dominion came down, the ruling had indeed been in their favour.  However, Richard Warman had appealed and so, having won, their federal case dragged on…

Today, the appeal had been dropped.  From Free Dominion:

‘Today we received notices of discontinance from the National Post and from RWarman in the copyright case that was set to be heard in the Federal Court of Appeal this coming Wednesday!

We were self-represented in this this case and we won in the lower court but R ichard W arman decided to appeal and the National Post lawyered up and joined in against us.

We fought hard and were so blessed to get two great interveners. The CIPPIC, who also intervened in the privacy motion in the John Doe case, and the CCIA (and American advocacy group that represents Google, eBay, Facebook and many other heavy-hitters).

On the eve of the trial, after all was prepared to go ahead, our opponents just dropped out with no explanation.

We are now entitled to costs on this case, and it is OVER! Great case law has been established, and we have one less lawsuit to think about.

Just a few more weeks and we hope to cross the Baglow one off the list, too!

Onward and upward! 8) 

Connie and Mark’

One down, so many more to go…  So, while celebrating, why not pop by their legal fund fundraiser and give them some help with the rest of the battles they are fighting on all of our behalfs!

 

P.S. – I wonder if the EU ruling earlier today had anything to do with the dropping of the appeal…

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EU court rules linking does not infringe copyright

February 14, 2014 — xanthippa

While most of us would, I hope, consider this common sense, it is nonetheless nice to have the EU courts confirm it.

This is important because the EU has some of the strongest copyright protection laws, which give authors a great deal of control over their published work.

‘The court had to consider whether by providing links Retriever Sverige had taken part in an “act of communication to the public”. Under EU copyright law, authors have the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit any communication to the public of their works.

The court ruled that the law had not been broken because the articles in question were on Goteborgs-Posten’s website and therefore already “freely available”.

In a statement it said: “The owner of a website may, without the authorisation of the copyright holders, redirect internet users, via hyperlinks, to protected works available on a freely accessible basis on another site.” ‘

 

A link that would take you behind a pay-wall, that is a different thing…

However, this ruling parallels the victory Connie and Mark Fournier of  the now censored Free Dominion had won in Canada’s federal court over Richard Warman, who claimed they had infringed his copyright by linking to an image on his own website.  In this particular case, the judge ruled that Warman had complete editorial control over his image and that linking to it, even should a thumbnail be displayed, did not constitute re-publishing it without permission.

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