Now this is not really a development talk but there is a lot of concern
about the legalities of downloading music in Canada and I thought I
would set the record straight on it. Part of Canadian copyright grants
a fair use for copying things for personal enjoyment as long as it is
not shared or sold publically.

We actually pay a levy on all
media (i.e. blank cassette tapes, blank cds and dvds). This levy is a
tax to compensate artists for revenue lost to the copying of their
works. So technically we already pay to make copies of music.
Unfortunately from what I have read is that this money is not making it
to the artists at all. The levy has generated about $120 million in the
past 5 years. About 25 percent of that has been distributed to the
artists.

This still does not mean that it is right for us to
download music in my opinion. I had heard of an ISP that included
access to a music download service as part of its fee which I really
liked the idea of (I can’t remember the name of the ISP though). I am
very against buying a CD from the store now as it is too expensive and
too crappy. I like the idea of only getting the 2 songs from a CD that
are good. It encourages the artist to make better music and the labels
to reduce prices. Unfortunately instead of seeing this trend these
record labels are suing the people downloading music.

In 2004
BMG Canada Inc. Attempted to learn the identities of users who have
infringed copyright by trading music on the internet in the case BMG
Canada Inc. v. John Doe. This case had a few issues with the evidence
they presented (i.e. how a kazaa user was tied to an IP address, not
contacting the software manufacturer to see if they could find the
identities of the users of the software, along with the time gap
between gathering the evidence and bringing it to court).

When
BMG Canada Inc. requested the identities they must compensate the ISPs
for the expenses arising out of discovering the account holder. The
ISPs responded that this was a very intensive process and hard to
determine who was using a certain IP at a given time. These records are
not held indefinately and might be purged at any time. They also stated
that all they could find out was who the account holder was. Not who
did the actuall downloading in the home.

The act of downloading
is interesting also. Under Section 80 of the Copyright Act it is
allowable for a person to make a copy of a musical work for private use
of the person who makes the copy. Thus downloading a song for personal
use is not an infringement under Canadian Copyright Law.

The act
of distribution is key in this case also. Under Candian Copyright a
person must authorize the copying of files. Simply placing a file in a
shared folder does not count as authorization. It is akin to placing a
photocopyer in a public library. If you were to send out copies or
advertise the copies (i.e. chat rooms, websites, etc.) you would be
infringing on copyright.

In the end this case was thrown out for many reasons.
The main ones were:
1. Downloading the song is not an infringement
2. Placing the song in a shared folder is not an infringement

Things that weakened the case even further:
1. The company who found the Kazaa and iMesh users did not present enough evidence on how this information was gathered.
2. The time between the information gathering and the court case was long with no explination.
3.
Due to the time length and difficulty of finding who was using an IP at
a given time innocent people could have been wrongly accused.
4. The actuall person using the computer at that time could not be identified based on the IP address.

One
interesting technicallity arrises out of this. If I were to lend you a
CD and you made a copy that would be legal under the copyright act. If
I took my CD, copied it, and gave it to you that would tecnically be
distribution and would be a copyright infringement.

I am unsure
how this would apply with me emailing you an mp3. In this case when is
copying occurring? I would think it happens on my computer as when it
leaves my computer a duplicate is made and sent to you. I think I would
have to make it available to you via a P2P application or an FTP server
to make it legal.

As you can see the industry does not like this and copyright reform is on the way right now.
-World Intellectual Propery Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty
has some items about making a work publically available but is not
currently in a Canadian copyright law. This would probablly make it an
infringement to share music to the public
-Bill C-60
is waiting to be passed that ammends Candaian copyright law. I have not
had a chance to look this over yet but I am sure there are some
interesting changed.

Copyright Basics
Copyright
is the right granted to an individual to protect a peice of work he/she
has created. This applies to literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic
works.

Copyright is automatic. Meaning that once you have
created a work it is already protected by copyright and you have rights
to defend that work from being copied.

Copyright protection does
not extent to ideas, facts, or information. Meaning that if I came up
with an idea for an invention and even wrote it down. It does not
prevent someone else from creating that idea. The only thing they can
not do is copy what I wrote down. Patents can be used to protect these
kinds of ideas (but that is outside the scope of this document).

An
interesting thing I discovered is that lectures count as literary works
and are also protected. Lecutures includes addresses, speaches, and
sermons. I know this really does not apply but just thought it to be
interesting.

Copyright lasts. A copyrighted work maintains its
copyright 25 years after the author dies. The copyright is passed as
part of the estate.

Ownership
In
essence the person who created a work is its author and therefore owns
the copyright. This is not necessarily true when you are in the employ
of a contract of another person

Section 13(3) where the author
of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract
of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his
emplyoment by that person, the person by whom the auther was employed
shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first
owner of the copyright.

There are exclusions though for
newspaper, magazine, or similar periodical contributions in this
section but that does not apply for us.

If you are in the hire of someone and do work the person who hired you holds the copyright!

Granting Rights to Others
As
the owner of a copyright you can grant rights for other people to use,
perform, create derivitive works, or full rights. These agreements must
be in writting to make them binding. By granting someone the right to
use or perform your work they can replicate your work in its entirety.
Derivitive works give the right for the licencee to modify the original
and re-use it. Full or Exclusive rights give the licencee full rights
to the work and can do whatever they want and relicence it to others if
they so choose.

What This Means
-If you are hired by someone to do work they own the copyright on the work you performed for them.
-If
you take content (be it text or images) from another person without
their written permission and place it on a site you are commiting a
copyright infringment.
-If you design something on your own (not
hired by someone else) and a client wishes to use it. You should sell
them a license to use your work.
-If you grant someone a licence to
use your work (but not make derivitive works) and they modify it, they
have commited an infringement.
-Using music or images on a site that you do not have written permission to use is an infringement.
-If
you built something for a client that has hired you and then find
another client that needs the same thing. You can not sell them the
item you produced without written consent from the original client you
did the work for (as they hold the copyright).

How To Protect Yourself as a Developer
-Ensure that you have rights to all of the works you are using in your project.
-Have a contract with your client that outlines who owns what.
-In your contract have a clause that ensures both parties are contributing works that they have rights to.
-I
personally like the idea of stating in my contracts for projects that I
am the owner of the copyright and the client has been granted a license
to use the website. I also like to grant them the right to make
derivitive works on the item in case they want to make changes in the
future. This way they can go to another developer and have it done in
case we had a falling out.
-The best way is to consult with a lawyer. From my reading most laws for the brick and mortar world apply to the internet world.
-If hiring subcontractors to do work ensure that the subcontractors only use works that they have rights to.
-Make
sure that you have rights to the work that the subcontractors do. I
ensure that I have at least the right to make derivitive works on
everything they send me.

Questions
Q. Who owns source files, psd’s, fla’s, etc.?
A. If you have hired someone to do the work then you have full rights to those works as you have paid for them to be created.

Q. How can I verify that I am not infringing on someone elses copyright?
A.
There is no real way to do this that I know of. I would do a search on
the interenet for content that I am using on a project and make sure
that I can not find it. Usually if you infringe on someones copyright
then they will notify you and ask you to change / remove the offending
matterial. This is the best case (who wants to go to court anyways?)

If you have any more please send them.

DISCLAIMER: I am not even close to a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Consult with a lawyer in any matter you have about law.

I have a mild interest in law and how it affects me. I have been
working with technology for most of my life and there is still not much
I can find about how the law relates to what we do in everyday cases.
In a series of posts I am going to make I will talk about some of them.

DISCLAIMER:
I am not a lawyer and the following guides are for information only.
They should not be treated as legal advice. Contact a lawyer for any
legal questions you might have. Don’t play with fire. It is hot. You
might get burned. Yada yada yada.

Accessability:

From
what I could find there is no laws about enabling your website for
disabled persons. You might think of this as a good thing but just
becuase there is not a law specifically for something means that
another one can be adapted to it.

For instance:
Section 15 of
the Canadian Charters of Rights and
Freedom(http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/) state that “every
individual is equal before the law”
Section 5 of the Canadian Human Rights Act state that access to goods or services can not be denied on the basis of descrimination

The Human Rights Act also states that descrimination is unacceptable wether it is intentional or not.

Basically
this sums up to: “ignorance is not an excuse” and “brick and mortar
law” could be applied to the the internet in this case. I am going to
recommend that you try to ensure that you make websites as available as
possible to the public.

Here is the W3s guide on website accessability: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

Honestly,
reading through the guide has a lot of helpfull tips even for designing
a website for the general public as well and it does not take that much
extra time to develop with.

(most information for this article was found here: http://www.zvulony.com/accessibility.html)