E-TIPS

Recently, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario released a report entitled: Privacy and the Digital Rights Management (DRM): An Oxymoron? The report details the advent of DRM and discusses how DRM has evolved.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued Sharman Networks Ltd. (Sharman), for contributory copyright infringement for distributing its popular Kazaa file exchange software. This case presents two unique aspects which were not present in the Napster case. First, KaZaa does not control users through a central registry of all files on all computers, a fact which could provide Sharman with a defense to the U.S. action and distinguish it from Napster and other such cases.

On October 3rd, 2002, the Canadian Ministry of Industry released its much anticipated report on the Copyright Act. The comprehensive report assesses the operation of the Act and identifies outstanding and emerging issues that need to be addressed.

In a meeting held last week, the Patent Policy Working Group ("PPWG") of the Internet standards body, World Wide Web Consortium ("W3C"), voted to recommend to W3C a royalty-free policy. The policy takes the position that W3C will not approve a Recommendation (effectively, a standard) on a web-related technology if it is aware that a patent exists covering the technology, which patent is not available for licensing on royalty-free terms.

As the popularity of online pharmacies grows, so do the concerns surrounding them. Poor customer service is often cited by consumers when using online stores. A larger concern to regulators, however, is the ease with which one can order drugs online without a prescription.

Court officials in Yakima, Washington have turned to technology in an effort to reduce court backlog. The Yakima County District Court, whose local court rules allow for the submission of a written statement instead of appearing at a hearing, has implemented a program which allows people to respond to public infraction tickets (such as traffic tickets) by emailing their explanations and excuses to a judge.

Effective July 1, 2003, non-EU companies delivering electronic services over the Internet will have to collect value added tax (VAT) from their EU customers. Under European Council Directive 2002/38/EC, suppliers of electronic services will have to register with a Member State of their choice through a simplified registration scheme. Tax collected from EU customers will then be remitted to the Member State, who will re-allocate the VAT revenue to the country of the customer. The measures are designed to level the playing field between EU and non-EU suppliers.

The Ontario government is considering legislation to strengthen online consumer protection. The Minister of Consumer and Business Services ("Ministry") announced the government's intentions at a recent public forum on Internet fraud. The Minister said new legislation would require disclosure of a physical address and would strengthen enforcement and penalties for Internet scams. The Minister said tougher disclosure rules would let consumers know exactly whom they are dealing with.

In a case involving the video footage depicting the beating of Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently overturned the decision of the Federal District Court and ruled that the Los Angeles News Service, Inc. (LANS), the owners of the copyright in the footage, were permitted to sue CBS Broadcasting, Inc. for copyright infringement. The District Court's ruling in favour of Courtroom Television Network (Court TV) was upheld.

RIM of Waterloo (Ontario) has continued its practice of aggressively enforcing its intellectual property rights by commencing proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against Handspring of Mountain View, California, for allegedly infringing a US patent RIM owns. In an announcement made on September 19, 2002, RIM said that it is seeking a declaration of infringement, an injunction against further infringement and damages.

In Dan Zuckerman v. Vincent Peeris, a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel has held that a complaint brought by Complainant, Dan Zuckerman, is an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking of the domain name shoes.biz. Disputes regarding .biz domain names are governed by the Start-up Trademark Opposition Policy for .BIZ (STOP), which defines reverse domain name hijacking as "using the Policy in bad faith to attempt to deprive a registered domain-name holder of a domain name."

On September 10, 2002, a Manchester Crown Court in the UK found Fiaz Chopdat, 23, guilty of endangering the safety of an aircraft by using his cell phone to play a game during a flight. Chopdat was warned to turn his cell phone off several times throughout the flight. His refusal resulted in his arrest upon landing in Manchester.

In a recent decision of the Tokyo District Court, the patent for the blue light-emitting diode ("LED") was found to be owned by the employer (Nichia Corporation) of inventor Shuji Nakamura at the time the invention was made, despite the latter's claim that he was insufficiently compensated for the profit brought the company as a result of the invention (over $400 Million USD annually).

Recently in the UK, Hewlett Packard suspended 150 staff involved in the viewing and sharing of unauthorized and inappropriate material using the company's computer systems.

A Greek appellate court has disagreed with a lower court's decision about the unconstitutionality of Greece's new controversial anti-gaming laws. The anti-gaming law, enacted in July, is intended to stop online gambling. However, the law effectively bans all electronic games in any public commercial place such as Internet Cafés.

The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) recently released a report on online gambling. The report examines existing laws on Internet gambling at the federal level and in the five states of Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Utah.

Recently, the State of Washington became the first U.S. state to win a court judgment involving its anti-spam law. Under Washington's 1998 Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act ("UCEMA"), it is illegal to send an e-mail that uses deceptive subject lines, a third party's domain name without permission, or a false return address. The Attorney General's Office sued Jason Heckel ("Heckel") and his company, Natural Instincts, shortly after the UCEMA was enacted, accusing Heckel of violating the UCEMA.

On August 30, 2002, the Danish Eastern High Court released a decision preventing the Dansk Internet Forum ("DIFO"), the national domain registrar for Denmark, from revoking Digital Marketing Support's ("DMS") registration of the domain name co.dk.

Australia to Utilize the Internet to Facilitate Trial The Banco Supreme Court in Queensland, Australia, is home to the first Internet based court case. The corporate case implementing this technology is expected to last several months and will act as a test for the new system. The technology involved can be used in both District and Supreme courts and in civil and criminal cases.

This is the website for the Internet Legal Resource Guide™ (ILRG). The ILRG is a mega site with a categorized index of thousands of links to law related websites all over the world. It is a good starting point when doing law related online research.