On March 14, I joined 300 or so BC entrepreneurs at the MYM Graduate Success event.

It was a great event, and Mincov Law Corporation was holding a draw for free trademark registration services.

We received over 20 eligible entries.

Last night, my daughters helped me pick the winner.

…and the winner is…

Congratulations, Silvia!

The new Copyright Act adds a new section 30.02 that virtually equates digital reproduction of works to photocopying (i.e. reprographic reproduction) for educational institutions.

The general idea is that if an educational institution has a license to make photocopies of works, then the institution may also make digital reproductions of these works and communicate such reproductions by telecommunication for an educational or training purpose.

The person who received such digital reproduction of a work is allowed to print one copy of it.

The educational institution is required to pay to the collective society the same license fees as in the case of the conventional photocopying license and to take steps to prevent unauthorized dissemination of the digital reproduction of the work.

Copyright owners whose rights are represented by a collective society that is authorized to grant licenses to photocopy these authors’ works may refuse to authorize the collective society to enter into digital reproduction agreements with respect to their works, but the default rule is that such permission is deemed to be granted.

Based on the provisions of paragraphs 30.02(4)(a) and 30.02(4)(b), it appears that this section will be of lesser importance once separate tariffs for digital reproduction have been certified.

This section also severely limits the remedies for unauthorized use of the works.

Because copyright owners at least have an opportunity to opt out from the application of this section, I would be happy with it if not for two issues:

First, I do not understand the reasoning behind curtailing the remedies of copyright owners in case their rights are infringed beyond what the exception has already taken away from them; and

Second, I would prefer some clarification as to how this new section is supposed to coexist with the addition of the word “education” to section 29 of the Act.

Speaking of the latter, I am getting many calls and emails with questions about whether this or that use can be justified under the “education” exception. Some are very creative in trying to justify what appears to be blatant copyright infringement under the pretense of having educational purposes.

If specific sections of the Copyright Act are meant to limit the application of s. 29 in that educational purposes are limited to those specific instances that are listed elsewhere in the Act, then the problem is of a much smaller caliber (albeit I still disapprove of the expansion of so-called “user rights”). If, on the other hand, s. 29 is to stand on its own in addition to all these specific instances then we are about to open the Pandora’s box.

BOTTOM LINE: Time will tell.

PS. The new Section 30.03 deals with tariffs. In a language whose clarity is only superior to that of the Income Tax Act, an attempt is made to specify what happens if a new tariff is introduced for digital reproduction or if the educational institution enters into an agreement that specifically deals with digital reproduction. The new section 30.03 is supposed to make it clear what happens with the license fees that the educational institution was paying under s. 30.02. The new section 30.03 may contain an answer to this question, but make it clear it does not...

On February 13, 2013, I delivered a seminar on intellectual property at the New York Institute of Technology in Vancouver.

Great to see so many aspiring students with lit-up eyes who came to learn about IP.

It is my pleasure to share with you a series of educational videos on trademarks that I have just created.

The total running time is under an hour, and if you are a small business owner I guarantee that watching these videos will be well worth your time.

No need to register, sign up or anything. Just watch the videos and learn.

P.S. For those interested, I wrote the music you hear in the intro and the outro when I was 13. This is the song that got me to travel to the U.S. in 1988 as part of the Soviet-American mission to promote peace. I was practicing on my drums and for some reason it appeared to me that this song would make a perfect corporate anthem for Mincov Law Corporation. So there you go!

It is with great excitement that I would like to announce the launch of the mobile version of the mincovlaw.com website.

After two weeks of on-and-off coding, it now looks that everything works as intended.

If you notice a bug, a glitch or have a suggestion, I would really appreciate if you left your comments below.

Thank you!