July 2025 – Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the rise of bookstore tourism and its impact on independent booksellers worldwide. Discover unique booktowns and literary destinations!| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the rise of bookstore tourism and its impact on independent booksellers worldwide. Discover unique booktowns and literary destinations!| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the clash between copyright laws and AI training in Canada, and why a wide TDM exception could harm the creative sector's interests.| Hugh Stephens Blog
“Autumn foliage, with Muskoka Chairs in the style of Monet”, generated by author from text prompts on Stable Diffusion platform If you are not an early tech adopter, you may not have he…| Hugh Stephens Blog
3 posts published by hughstephensblog during July 2024| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the clash between copyright laws and AI training in Canada, and why a wide TDM exception could harm the creative sector's interests.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Blasting a Wide TDM Hole in the Structure of Copyright is Not the Answer The ongoing wrestling match-cum-dance between the creative sector and AI developers over the uncompensated and unauthorized use of copyrighted content for AI training is being played out in different ways in different countries. In the US it is largely a legal … Continue reading "Canada’s Creative Sector Uneasily Awaits the Carney Government’s Next Steps on AI Training"| Hugh Stephens Blog
What They are Doing Really Bugs Me Image: US District Court Filing I confess to having been a lifetime fan of Bugs Bunny, that “Wascally Wabbit”, and not just because I worked for Time Warner at one point in my career. His insouciance, his ingenuity and his cultural achievements (have you seen Bugs perform opera … Continue reading "When Will AI Developers Take Responsibility for the Products They Provide Their Subscribers?"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the landmark copyright ruling in Australia affecting investigative journalism and animal rights. Discover its implications for press freedom.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image Credit: Le Journal de Montréal I first wrote about obituary piracy back in 2019, and then more recently (here and here) about the online obituary company, Echovita which, to be clear, does not engage in copyright infringement. This is because it manages to stay just within the law by taking information from obituaries on … Continue reading "So, You Want to Get in Touch with Echovita? Good Luck (But Please Don’t Phone Me)"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Based on Common Sense, the Answer Should be “Yes” Image: Shutterstock Late last year a consortium of major Canadian media companies (including the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC-Radio Canada, Canadian Press, Metroland and PostMedia) sued OpenAI, founders and operators of ChatGPT (and Dalle E), for copyright infringement, seeking injunctive relief and damages. OpenAI moved … Continue reading "Does OpenAI (ChatGPT) Have a Presence in Canada? Should it be Subject to Canadian Law?"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore why 'fair use' doesn't excuse piracy in the landmark Anthropic case and its implications for the future of AI and copyright law.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the ethical dilemmas of META using pirated sources of copyrighted content without permission for AI training.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore how Sci-Hub undermines academic paywalls and open access, and learn about its impact on knowledge dissemination globally.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Sci-Hub Undermines both Paywall and Open Access Models Image: Logopedia (CC-BY-SA Licence) As reported by TorrentFreak, Sci-Hub, the notorious pirate site for scientific and academic journals, has been blocked in India by court order after a 5 year court process. Obstinacy and failure to appear or offer a defence on the part of Sci-Hub’s operator, … Continue reading "Sci-Hub Blocked in India: Has the Last Domino Fallen for this Notorious Academic Pirate Site?"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore Canada's trade challenges with the US, tariff disputes, and the precarious future of cultural policies in ongoing negotiations.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the hypocrisy in the US State Department's critique of Canadian press freedoms amid declining US standards. A closer look at media and law.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Earlier this month the US State Department released its annual report on Human Rights in over 190 countries. As usual, there was a country report on Canada. What was less usual was the report’s negative focus criticizing the state of press freedoms in Canada. It seems that as press freedom has declined in the US … Continue reading "It’s the Pot Calling the Kettle Black: US State Dept Human Rights Reports Criticizes Freedom of the Press in Canada"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Painting by C.W. Jeffreys, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons Resurrecting this 1950s-era Joe Friday (played by Jack Webb) quote from the TV series Dragnet may date me but it is a classic. The request seems so simple. Just the facts, and nothing but the facts. Facts are integral to interpretation of copyright law because “the … Continue reading "“Just the facts, Ma’am”: Facts and Copyright"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the ethics of paywalls and their impact on journalism. Understand why respecting content access is crucial for quality news.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the rise of bookstore tourism and its impact on independent booksellers worldwide. Discover unique booktowns and literary destinations!| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore how piracy in Southeast Asia correlates with malware risks, threatening local economies and cultural integrity—key insights from Dr. Watters' study.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore Canada's recent rescinding of the Digital Services Tax and its ramifications on trade relations with the U.S. in this insightful analysis.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Discover why independent bookstores are the hottest travel trend. Explore unique literary destinations, coffee shops, and rare finds!| Hugh Stephens Blog
Photo: Author Much has been written about the decline or even the imminent demise of independent bookstores, yet most of them continue to survive, even thrive. In the same vein as the comment famou…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock.com With a general election in Canada now set for April 28, attention will be focussed south of the border to see what Donald Trump says and does next. Apart from his tiresome a…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock Canada infamously tried to take a leaf from Australia’s book in dealing with large internet platforms, like Google and Meta, that benefit from news media content without paying …| Hugh Stephens Blog
www.shutterstock.com The news that Google and the Government of Canada managed to strike a deal prior to the coming into force later this month of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, was not really a s…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock (AI assist) First, I heard it on the radio. The word “copyright” caught my attention because that’s a word seldom heard on the morning news. Then the news stories started to app…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock (with AI assist) It was inevitable. After all the lawsuits in the US (and some in the UK) pitting various copyright holders against AI development companies alleging the AI plat…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock In July, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa filed an application in the Federal Court to expunge or amend a Canadian co…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock (AI modified) Singapore already has one of the most permissive text and data mining (TDM) exceptions in copyright law found anywhere, allowing AI developers to ingest copyrighte…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image:www.shutterstock.com There is no better way to start out the New Year, 2024, with a commentary on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and copyright. It was the big emerging issue in 2023 and is goin…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock (modified) The 2021 Revisions Back in 2021 I wrote a mixed review of the revisions brought in to update Singapore’s Copyright Act. There were some significant positives for righ…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Credit: author Thank you CIPO (Canadian Intellectual Property Office). Last week I indicated in my blog post (“Copyright Registration for AI-assisted Creations: How Much AI Input is Too Much?”) tha…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Photo: Author A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Copyright in Cottage Country, and how those wet afternoons are often occupied with cards or board games, like Scrabble, Clue or Cranium, all of whi…| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the clash between copyright laws and AI training in Canada, and why a wide TDM exception could harm the creative sector's interests.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Photo (c) author, 2023 For anyone who may have noticed (hopefully you did), I have not posted a blog for a couple of weeks. I am invoking that blanket summertime excuse, “I’ve been up at the cottag…| Hugh Stephens Blog
