Category Archives: Information Technology

Bill C-32: The Latest Attempt to Amend the Copyright Act

There’s a new copyright bill that was tabled yesterday in Parliament.  It’s been in the papers, online news sources, etc.  It can be found at http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4580265&Language=e&Mode=1 Activities that are commonplace and have been legal in the U.S. for about 3 … Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology, Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Speciation of Web Sites

I saw a headline the other day in someone else’s newspaper:  Days of Static Website Over.  Not that I was on the bus and read the headline from several yards away and didn’t read the article at all. My first … Continue reading

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Technology (law) is everywhere!

At the firm where I’m working, I deal a lot with wills & estates, family law, and small business. “But wait!” you say. “Where’s the intellectual property and information technology?”

And I answer, “Everywhere.” Continue reading

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Information is the Good, the Currency, and the Era

I’m reading “Business @ the Speed of Thought,” by Bill Gates.  (Chapters-Indigo Link Here)  He wrote it ten years ago, which allows me the critical distance I prefer when reading a book that prognosticates. Say what you will about MS … Continue reading

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On Virtual Travel

Why would a denizen of a virtual world want to cross over into another virtual world, especially if she couldn’t bring her special powers, skills, or goods into that other world?  This was the question asked in a comment the … Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Who carries your Web 2.0 banner?

What’s at stake when you let others step in your online footprint? Goodwill has to do with the perception of your enterprise, and liability has to do with getting into real legal trouble. How are they connected by this Web 2.0 stuff? … Being obnoxious, opinionated, or siding with one side of a contentious debate will not likely create more than a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. Being wrong, when you carry a banner of knowing better, can create a problem. Continue reading

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Laws for the Virtual Universe

What if virtual worlds, no matter their purposes, narratives, unique details, and other variations, could be linked? What if they had borders between them, keeping the right stuff in its place, but in other ways being permeable? Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology, Legal Explorations, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Richard Stallman came to Vancouver, and I upset him

Richard Stallman was in Vancouver two weeks ago. He performed, if I may describe his lectures like that, three times; I caught the first. I asked Stallman a question after it was over, and thoroughly annoyed him. I know that I annoyed him because he grew flustered, stamped his feet, turned away from me to the rest of the crowd and yelled at me. Continue reading

Posted in Civil Liberties, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Does WOM or Social Network Marketing Create Agency?

With WOM and social network marketing, we move from getting people to wear branded clothing to transforming them into fans banding together to pontificate, not on the merits of your product, but on the social imperative of being a fan of the brand. … We do have something that looks a lot like agency… Once you let someone use the stuff you’re supposed to be protecting, and you let them use it to an extent that gives them a fair bit of potential power because of the near-instantaneous and viral nature of the networks used, you’re actually handing over some pretty hefty reins. Continue reading

Posted in Business Law, Communications, Information Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

What would you call open-source marketing?

Instead of tightening your grip on intellectual property (mostly trade-mark with a healthy dose of copyright and some neighbouring rights) and then hoping for royalties, the group doing the marketing attempts to engineer a type of personality cult for the brand. … What I’m talking about is tying differences (real or created) to cultural phenomena, and then grabbing hold of those phenomena and driving from that end; the product becomes a tag-along to those cultural memes. Continue reading

Posted in Business Law, Communications, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments