August 2025 – 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
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
Image: Shutterstock.com It seems that wherever I go these days, I inevitably run into tattoos, some very creative, some less so. They are on the arms, legs, necks (and no doubt other parts of the anatomy) of servers and cooks in restaurants, entertainers, hairdressers, university professors–butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. I don’t have any but … Continue reading "Having Some Skin in the Game: The Copyright Challenges of Tattooing"| 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
Detailed Academic Study of Five Southeast Asian Countries Clearly Demonstrates Close Correlation Between Piracy Sites and Malware Infection Image: Shutterstock You won’t get a message like this announcing you’ve just downloaded malware. Instead, you will find out when unauthorized payments start showing up on your credit card statement, or worse, you find that your bank … Continue reading "“You’ve Got Malware!” Wonder Why?"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock The phone call came out of the blue. It was from a distressed family member who had just suffered a close and tragic personal loss. That in itself was obviously difficult enough to deal with. What was really upsetting was the unauthorized dissemination of that heart-rending event through Echovita, (or Echovita Canada) including … Continue reading "Echovita is Still Going Strong: The Sleazy (but Apparently Legal) Business of Monetizing Obituaries Without Consent"| 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
Image: Shutterstock.com Last week I wrote about the questionable ethics of META’s use of pirated content to train its AI model, Llama, pointing out the ethical issues involved with META’s admitted use of pirated online libraries, such as LibGen (Library Genesis), to feed content to Llama for training purposes. This is quite apart from whatever … Continue reading "Hold the Champagne: The Two AI Training/Copyright Decisions Released in the US Last Week Were a Mixed Bag for AI Developers"| Hugh Stephens Blog
Explore the ethical dilemmas of META using pirated sources of copyrighted content without permission for AI training.| Hugh Stephens Blog
4 posts published by hughstephensblog during March 2025| Hugh Stephens Blog
4 posts published by hughstephensblog during April 2025| Hugh Stephens Blog
Quebec's challenge of federal preeminence in order to protect the French language is nothing new. It occurred over regulation of broadcasting in the 1930s and has arisen again in the context of regulating streaming. Discoverability of French language content is the key issue.| Hugh Stephens Blog
Discover why independent bookstores are the hottest travel trend. Explore unique literary destinations, coffee shops, and rare finds!| Hugh Stephens Blog
Image: Shutterstock On so-called “Liberation Day”, April 2, a day that, to echo FDR, will live in infamy, (the day the world trading system was turned upside down and the US shot itself in the foot…| 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
I am a former Canadian foreign service officer and a retired executive with Time Warner. In both capacities I worked for many years in Asia. I have been writing this copyright blog since 2016, and …| 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
Image: Shutterstock (with AI assist) As we approach July 1, Canada Day, Canada’s 157th anniversary, it is worth reflecting on the history that shaped this wonderful if imperfect country of now 41 m…| Hugh Stephens Blog
