Landing : Athabascau University

Three illustrations of a global copyright regime out of balance

1. Michael Geist reported Thursday that "the Department of National Defence is using crown copyright to demand the removal of a leaked government document that has been widely discussed and posted on the Internet."

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6447/125/

2. ABC News (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corp) reported Friday that the New South Wales police are being sued for software piracy:

UK software company Micro Focus is demanding at least $10 million in damages from NSW Police. It claims NSW Police has been using pirated copies of their computer software for more than a decade to run their COPS (Computerised Operational Police System) - the largest criminal intelligence database in the country.

(This item maybe siqgnals not so much regime imbalance as regime absurdity: the police here are the pirates.)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-24/nsw-police-in-legal-battle-with-software-giant/3970388

3. Earlier this month, as reported by CBC, "Canada Post has filed a lawsuit against an Ottawa-based geographic data company, alleging that the firm's collection of postal codes infringes on a copyright that Canada Post owns."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/04/13/technology-canada-post-postal-code-copyright.html