Laws of .com

Volume VII, Issue 4: February 26, 2009

Court Rules ISP Subscriber Information Is Not Private

Apple Sued Over iPhone Panning and Zooming Technology

Law Restricting Sale or Rental of Violent Video Games Invalid

Facebook Rescinds Policy Change

CIRA Rules in Domain Name Dispute: Discovery Toys Inc. v. Thevasagayam

Montreal Man Convicted for Movie Piracy

Court Rules ISP Subscriber Information Is Not Private

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently ruled that certain personal information “is akin to information in a phone book” and does not attract a “reasonable expectation of privacy”.

Police officers in St. Thomas were investigating a case involving child pornography. In trying to identify the accused, then suspected of accessing child pornography from a particular internet protocol address, the police requested (without a warrant) subscriber information for that specific internet protocol address from Bell Canada, who released the information. The subscriber on record was the spouse of the accused.

The Court rejected the claim that the police violated the accused’s privacy rights, ruling that no breach of the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act had occurred. Specifically, the Court stated that “one’s name and address or the name and address of your spouse are not biographical information one expects would be kept private from the state.”

For additional information, visit:
http://www.it-can.ca/newsletters/021909.pdf

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Apple Sued Over iPhone Panning and Zooming Technology

Picsel Ltd. and Picsel Technologies Ltd, two related Scottish companies, have filed a patent infringement suit against Apple Inc. over the way in which the iPhone and iPod Touch handle panning and zooming of documents and web pages. The Picsel plaintiffs allege in the Delaware District Court filing that these devices incorporate patented handheld document rendering technology which allows users to pan and zoom rapidly around a document without lengthy waits for the system to redraw the screen.

Apple has been a frequent target of intellectual property rights holders in recent years, and currently is involved in more than 20 disputes over its technology and products.

For additional information, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7895503.stm?lss
http://news.cnet.com/apple-sued-over-iphone-screen-tech/

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Law Restricting Sale or Rental of Violent Video Games Invalid

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a California District Court summary judgment order invalidating California Civil Code Sections enacted in 2005 (the “Act”) that would have prohibited the selling or renting to minors of video games labeled as “violent”, and that would have imposed a requirement that any such video game imported into or distributed in California be labeled with an “18” on the front of its packaging.

In the recent opinion, the Court of Appeals stated that as a content-based restriction on speech, the Act was subject to strict scrutiny and held that it violated rights protected under the First Amendment. The State did not contest that video games are a form of expression protected by the First Amendment, though the opinion notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has not specifically commented on this.

The Court of Appeals found that the state had not established a causal link between minors playing violent video games and psychological or neurological harm, and therefore did not meet the burden of demonstrating a compelling interest. Furthermore, it held that the state had not tailored the Act’s restriction to its alleged compelling interest and that there existed less restrictive means of furthering that interest. Finally, the Court of Appeals held that the labeling requirement was unconstitutionally compelled speech under the First Amendment because it did not require the disclosure of purely factual information, but rather the subjective opinion of the state.

For a copy of the decision (Court of Appeals), visit:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/02/20/0716620.pdf

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Facebook Rescinds Policy Change

In a recent about-face, social networking giant Facebook has withdrawn changes to its user agreement that granted it control over user-generated content and information that would extend even beyond the cancellation of a particular user’s account. Consumerist.com first posted information regarding the policy change on its website. Leading privacy advocates protested these changes and were in the process of preparing a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which prompted Facebook to revert to its prior policy.

Facebook, however, argues that the changes were not meant to effectively change the way that the site uses user information. Rather, Facebook asserts that the changes are meant to be a clarification to reflect the technological fact that once a user sends another user content, a second copy is created that is now outside of the first user’s control. Facebook has undertaken to work with its users to come up with language that both reflects the reality of how content is used, while addressing the privacy concerns that have been raised.

For additional information, visit:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123494484088908625.html

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CIRA Rules in Domain Name Dispute: Discovery Toys Inc. v. Thevasagayam

Recently, a panelist of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) ruled on a domain name dispute between Discovery Toys Inc., a California-based retailer of educational toys, and Thevasagayam, a Toronto-resident who had registered the domain name, “discoverytoys.ca”, in November, 2000. CIRA’s panelist ruled in favour of Discovery following an examination of several key factors outlined in CIRA’s Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP). First, the domain name was found to be “confusingly similar” to Discovery’s trade-marks, which existed prior to the domain name registration. In fact, absent the .ca suffix, the domain name was identical to such marks. Second, Thevasagayam had “no legitimate interest” in the domain name. Specifically, none of the CDRP criteria in support of a legitimate interest, including a bona fide offering of goods and services, were found to exist. The disputed domain name was merely used to operate a pay-per-click web page that linked to third party websites. Lastly, the registration of the domain name was found to be made in “bad faith”. The nature of the web page itself acted to disrupt Discovery’s business, and Thevsagayam ultimately sought to sell discovery.ca for a profit. Consequently, the CIRA panelist ordered the transfer of the discovery.ca domain name to Discovery.

For a copy of the CIRA dispute resolution panel decision, visit:
http://www.cira.ca/en/dpr-decisions/00118-discoverytoys.ca.pdf

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Montreal Man Convicted for Movie Piracy

A Montreal man was recently convicted under the anti-camcording provisions of the Canadian Criminal Code for the illegal recording of a film at a Montreal movie theatre. As part of his sentence, the man must serve a 24 month probation during which time he must not own a recording device, enter a movie theatre or associate with anyone involved in movie piracy. The man must also perform 120 hours of community service.

In her ruling, the Judge reinforced the fact that the man’s actions had caused extensive losses to the movie industry. This ruling is being applauded by the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association (CMPDA).

For additional information, visit:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Canadian-Motion-Picture-Distributors-Association-952693.html

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