Key Principle: A unionized employee, subject to the terms of a collective agreement, must go through the necessary steps of dispute resolution before applying to a court for a remedy. If the collective agreement specifically addresses matters related to the creation of works and copyright therein...
Key Principle: In order to prove copyright ownership it must be accepted as fact by the defence or proven with substantive evidence in court. Bald assertions, or simply claiming you own copyright, is not enough. Also, a corporation cannot be the “author” of a work. An...
Key Principle: Oral permission to use photos for a certain purpose provides a defence to an action for infringement. But, oral permission to use them for a certain purpose gives no rights in the photos with respect to suing others for copyright infringement. A grant of...
Key Principle: Generally, a distributor of material subject to copyright will not be found to have infringed that copyright if they lawfully received the material in question from the party who owns the copyright. However, if a distributor knows or should have known the party they...
Key Principle: An owner of a copyright in a work is free to assign or license some or all of the rights associated with that copyright to another person for the entire life of the copyright, which is normally for the life of the author, the...
Key Principle: The creator of a work is presumed to hold the copyright to the work. While the unauthorized reproduction of a substantial part of a copyrighted machine drawing constitutes copyright infringement, so too may the unfair reproduction of certain important features of such a drawing...
Key Principle: While sporting events do not themselves qualify as works capable of attracting copyright protection, television reproductions of sporting events may. In the case of televised programming, generally both the programming itself and the communication signal by which it is transmitted is protected by copyright....
Key Principle: By default, an employer owns the copyright to any patentable product that his employee produces in the course of employment. It makes no difference if the employee calls the product a personal project, or whether he initially develops it on his own time. Summary: The Situation: You...
Key Principle: Employers are automatically vested with copyright in any work employees produce during their employment, unless there is an agreement to the contrary. Where an employee’s prior work becomes commingled with work produced during employment, an employer can claim an interest in that prior work...
Key Principle: Unless there is evidence to suggest the contrary, a musician holds all copyright interest in a musical work that he or she creates and records. This interest extends to the master recording for the musical work, and as such, no other person has the...