I often get calls from clients I am registering trade-marks for asking me if an invoice they have received is legitimate. These are so common that CIPO (Canadian Intellectual Property Office) prints a warning on their trade-mark approval notices that says:

The sender of the “invoice” cuts out the advertisement of the recipient’s trade-mark from the trade-marks journal, and sends it along with an invoice that looks like this:

That is one we received here at Harrison Pensa when a mark we are registering for ourselves was advertised.

So if you get one of these – don’t pay it. If in doubt, contact your trade-mark agent/lawyer.

There has been a huge controversy over the last day or so regarding the QTrax announcement that it has deals with major labels to allow free music downloads. The catch was that those deals areapparently not in place yet. There is also (in my mind at least) a looming privacy issue.

In return for the free downloads the user must watch advertising while it downloads. The labels are to get a share of the advertising revenue.

The privacy issue is that the revenue is apparently calculated on actual use, ie how often the songs are listened to, in addition to how often they are downloaded. That means there is a DRM mechanism that reports back how often you listened.

The Qtrax web site says there is no spyware, but I couldn’t find any details about the reporting issue, nor a privacy policy. Lets hope it does not report back any personal info, and that they explain how it works so consumers can make an educated decision about using the service.

Read a Times Online article

Read a GigaOM post

For the London Free Press – January 28, 2008

Read this on Canoe

At the end of 2007 the Canadian government stood poised to introduce a new copyright law that many feared would amount to a sell-out to the demands of lobbyists and the United States government.

While the issue was largely ignored by traditional media, word began to spread online, primarily through two relatively new sources of information: blogs and Facebook.

The feared changes would affect the rights of large numbers of Canadians who utilize copyrighted materials in numerous ways.

Word of the potential changes was initially spread via blogs, one of the most vocal critics being University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist. The initial warnings from various blogs increased awareness among online users. The blogs also provided information on ways to fight the contemplated legislation and kept readers up to date on new developments.

On Dec. 1, Prof. Geist founded a Facebook group called Fair Copyright for Canada in an attempt to spread awareness. Within two weeks the group had over 20,000 members.

The remarkable growth of the group had two immediate effects. The first was an increase in awareness of the issues. The second, while not as direct, was more far-reaching. The rapid growth of the Facebook group became a news story in itself, exposing the issues to a significantly larger segment of the population. The story initially focused on the use of the social networking site as a political tool. But the story also focused on the message as well as the medium.

Suddenly the potential change to copyright law was a major news story.

Then something remarkable happened. On Dec. 13, 2007, the government decided to delay the introduction of the legislation. There is hope the government decided to modify the legislation in the face of this unexpected groundswell of grassroots opposition. Some fear, however, that the government has only delayed in the hopes that interest in the issue will die down.

If the latter is true, that hope is unlikely to be fulfilled. The group continues to grow, membership now sits at about 40,000.

In addition to raising awareness, Facebook has proved to be a useful tool for organizing efforts to oppose the legislation. The Fair Copyright for Canada group has spawned a number of local chapters across the country. t has provided a forum for individuals to come together with others who share their concerns and led to several organized local events including educational opportunities and meetings with local MPs.

The groundswell of opposition is not without its critics. Some question how many, and to what extent, those who oppose the changes and join the group truly understand the issues at hand.

While not everybody who stands opposed fully understands the issues, the same is true of nearly any cause that engenders significant numbers of supporters. What can’t be denied is the effectiveness of the use of blogs and Facebook in bringing this issue to the attention of large numbers of Canadians, and its effect on the political process.

Th Register has an article with details about an attack on the church of Scientology by a group calling itself Anonymous.

The attack apparently consists of not only a ddos (distributed denial of service) attack on their web site, but also sending black faxes, and publishing docuemnts Scientology claims copyright in.

The article has a link to a YouTube video explaining the reasons for the attack.

I support neither the Church of Scientology, nor this kind of attack – but it raises lots of issues to ponder around freedom of speech, religion, IP rights, hacker liability, security, etc. At the very least its entertaining.

Read the article

The Washington Post has an article that says 9 employees were fired, and many more sent warnings and reprimands. They had clicked on the sites thousands of times per year.

There was a policy in place that prohibited such conduct.

There are definite advantages to having technology use policies in place. It lets employees know what is acceptable and unacceptable use. And if employees cross the line, it makes it much easier to do something about it.

Read the Washington Post article

Lifehacker points to an amusing post on the Put Things Off blog that bills itself as The laid-back prodcutivity blog. entitled Think Different – Buy a Bigger Envelope!, subtitled How to Tell if You Really Need New Hardware.

Its a reality check for those who just have to buy the latest and greatest gadgets. I admit I get caught up in that sometimes – but then I’m too cheap to spend the money.

Apple, for example, thrives on the want, rather than the need to buy new stuff – with the marketing buzz they create, their knack of getting unique (or at least the illusion of unique) products to the market at the right time, and cutting edge design. Why include user replaceable batteries, for example, when you will buy the Macbook Space before the battery on the Macbook Air dies?

Take a look at the Buy a Bigger Envelope post.

A recent article in the Canadian Privacy Law Review entitled Tort of Invasion of Privacy Recognized in Ontario talks about a case where a court awarded damages for breach of privacy. (Caltagirone v Scozzari-Cloutier)

To put it in perspective though, it was in the Small Claims Court, and since court decisions are only binding on courts beneath the one making the decision, this decision is binding on, well, no-one.

See an earlier article I wrote on this topic.

for the London Free Press – January 21, 2008

Read this on Canoe

The failure to document the ownership of intellectual property is one of the most common mistakes made by organizations. It can be difficult to correct after the fact.

Intellectual property covers a wide gamut of things ranging from copyright, trade-marks, patents, nondisclosure obligations, trade secrets and license arrangements both in and out.

This commonly manifests itself when other parties create something for an organization. That could be anything ranging from custom computer programming to writing a corporate brochure to creating images for use in advertising material.

Not being able to prove ownership — or indeed, not having ownership at all — can cause significant ramifications to one’s business.

Not being able to prove you actually own the rights to the product you sell can be fatal to getting financing, making a significant sale, or to the sale of your business. It can quickly end that takeover you were counting on as your liquidity event or for your retirement plan.

While it is theoretically easy to document this after the fact, it is often not easy to find the right people, convince them to co-operate, and convince them your view of ownership is the right one. People often disagree on who should own things, especially after it is created.

Asking for someone to sign a document that confirms they don’t own something they created leads to the conclusion that it must have some value.

And if it has value, their desire to get part of that value may colour their perception of who is actually entitled to it.

Without an agreement to the contrary, the starting position is that the contractor, not the organization that hires them to do the job, owns whatever they create.

There are many misconceptions about who owns what, and what rights attach by default.

Situations often come with different points of view, which can lead to different perceptions and conclusions about ownership and other rights attaching to creative works.

It is crucial for those issues to be addressed in writing with contractors. This is true whether one is hiring a large corporation to do some programming, whether borrowing some creative people from the business down the hall, or whether hiring an independent contractor to perform a task.

It is not uncommon for a client to a come to their lawyer saying they think they own something, but a former employee or contractor insists they own it.

Typically this happens when one needs to prove one owns it for some reason. If the other party knows that, it raises the difficulty and price to get it resolved.

The solution to this problem is simple. Put the arrangement in writing before the work starts, and clearly set out the ownership and rights that attach to the material being created.

If there are disagreements over intentions regarding ownership and rights, it is far easier and better to resolve those up front before the work begins

Michael Geist has published a post entitled Fair Copyright for Canada Principles that summarizes what he thinks fair copyright reform looks like. The list is a good read for anyone trying to understand the issues.

Read Michael’s post

Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field” was in full force at yesterday’s MacWorld. Even if one is not an Apple fan, or does not use any Apple products, you have to admire the way they design, announce, and sell their products.

There was so much buzz, and so much desire to get the word out as the announcements happened, that some communications services were overwhelmed with traffic.

Despite the fact that their products are not cheap, they sell amazingly well. Millions of iphones, for example, in 10 months – enough to garner 19% of the smartphone market.

Apple seems to have the knack of figuring out what people want, and provides that by leaving out or compromising what most would feel are necessary features. For example, the new MacBook Air is amazingly thin, has wifi N, but has no ethernet port, only 1 usb port, no optical drive, and the battery is not user replaceable.

They also have the ability to announce new products, then have them available almost immediately.

Coverage is everywhere. Some examples:

Gizmodo

Engadget

Techdirt

Client side blog