The rise of videogame streaming in a global pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large effect on our entertainment consumption. Some entertainment industries have taken significant hits, while others have been more fortunate in their rise. Videogame...
View ArticleSocial media, photos, privacy, and conversion
There seem to be a lot of questions lately about the use of photographs on social media, so a recent federal court case may be of interest in raising some risks you may not have contemplated. The case...
View ArticleSocial media, photographs, and fair use
We have previously written about the lawsuits that can result from unauthorized uses of photographs, but on November 2, 2020, a federal trial court in New York issued a ruling regarding use of a photo...
View ArticleSocial media copyright infringement: International small claims in Canada
In the last month of 2020, Canadian courts decided two proceedings involving alleged copyright infringement and social media platforms. Both proceedings were small scale and involved foreign copyright...
View ArticleOnline copyright reform consultation launched by the Canadian government
On Wednesday, April 14, 2021, the Canadian government launched a consultation on “a Modern Copyright Framework for Online Intermediaries”, seeking comments from the public until May 31. The goal of...
View ArticleNFTs’ nifty copyright issues
Whether you are a crypto guru or not, you have likely heard about NFTs. The three-letter acronym, NFT, stands for “Non-Fungible Token”. NFTs are the centre of attention right now because of...
View ArticleEmbedded Content: Copyright Infringement or Permissible Use Under the Server...
The Southern District of New York recently considered whether the unlicensed embedding of a video originally posted to a social media platform constituted copyright infringement. The case, Nicklen v....
View ArticlePhotos and Social Media
We have previously written on how expensive it can be to copy photos found on social media and use them for commercial purposes, as a result of copyright infringement claims. On October 3, 2022, the...
View ArticleSocial media, copyright, and fair use
On August 16, 2023, a federal trial court in Texas ruled on a copyright matter involving a factual video that went viral on social media. At the motion to dismiss stage, the issue the court faced was...
View ArticleLegal pitfalls of short-form videos
A recent social media trend that has exploded in the past couple years is the use of “short-form videos.” Short-form videos are short in length—typically ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes—and...
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