Thursday, November 15, 2012

Rogers et al to Copyright Board Too re Ringtones: We Want Our Money Back

Yesterday, I blogged about the lawsuit started by Rogers et al against SOCAN in the Federal Court to get their ringtones money back. It turns out that there’s been an ongoing parallel proceeding underway at the Copyright Board.

Here is the Rogers et al  Application dated August 1, 2012 to the Board to Vary the Board’s August 18, 2006 and June 29, 2012 Ringtones decisions.



There are too many other documents to post at this time and the above documents present the flavour of the proceedings.

A number of important issues are raised such as the Board’s jurisdiction, res judicata, the impact of the new “making available” right, etc.

It remains to be seen how and when each of these two proceedings (the Court and the Board) will play out, and how and when they may impact on each other and what may happen later on in the Federal Court of Appeal.

With $15 million on the table, one can expect that this may take some time to determine. 

HPK

1 comment:

  1. SOCAN's response states:

    "However, one of the key bases upon which the Supreme Court concluded that downloadsof videogames were akin to reproductions and not communications was the fact that the copy of the videogame that the user would download to his/her computer was identical in all respectsto the physical hardcopy of the game that the user could purchase in a store. The same is not true for ringtones. There is no identical physical market for ringtones in which one can buy a ringtone CD ina store."

    Ah - I doubt this last sentence is true. For example...

    http://www.buycdnow.ca/products/Greatest-Bits-%26-Ringtones-Wolfman-Jack-%28Audio-CD%29-UPC%3A-634479868054.html

    Finding this Canadian link took me about two minutes. (I found a UK link in about five seconds.)

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