Articles

This article, which is the first part of a two part series, introduces the protection available for computer programs under Canadian copyright law and identifies areas where the law is unsettled.

Information technology outsourcing and cloud computing can bring a variety of benefits to businesses, such as cost savings and access to specialized knowledge. At the same time, however, they can also present various legal challenges to businesses.

At some point in their careers, most IT practitioners deal with open source software. Open source software presents a conceptual challenge to those who are used to dealing with the traditional proprietary licensing model in that, in a typical open source software license...

In the fall of 2011, the Ontario Bar Association’s Information Technology and Electronic Commerce Section hosted two ethics and professionalism programs.

The conception and regulation of privacy in today’s Internet-driven world is an evolving issue, as highlighted in the discussion at the OBA Information Technology and E-Commerce Section seminar on “Mobile Computing & Privacy” held on May 3, 2011.

A spate of recent patent purchases indicate the strength of the market for mobile computing, including smart phones and tablets. For example, earlier this year a consortium led by Microsoft outbid Google for Nortel’s patent portfolio of roughly 6000 patents and applications.

Virtualization is not a new concept, but it is increasingly reaching new users. What was once only available to the large mainframe computers of decades ago, is now affordable and available for use on computers in organizations of any size. As servers become less expensive and more powerful, it is increasingly possible for enterprises to exploit the advantages of virtualization at an affordable cost.

On November 19, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted preliminary approval of an amended settlement agreement in the Google Book Search litigation, which centred on Google’s plans to digitize millions of books from major research libraries. The Amended Settlement is an attempt to settle two lawsuits commenced in 2005, one by the Authors Guild and several individual authors and the other by certain publisher members of the Association of American Publishers. 

On October 21, 2009, the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission issued its ‘net neutrality’ policy, designed to govern the ability of internet service providers to manage internet traffic. The policy imposes “a higher standard than that available under (the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) in order to provide a higher degree of privacy protection for customers of telecommunications services.” 

Federal anti-spam legislation received royal assent on December 15, 2010 and is expected to come into force within the next few months, upon proclamation. The legislation prohibits a very broad class of commercial electronic communications, unless the recipient consents to receive it or an exception is available.