Author: Kiera Boyd

About Kiera Boyd

Kiera Boyd practices in the area of communications, with a particular emphasis on copyright. Kiera graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario. Prior to law school, she completed an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a minor in Political Science at Queen’s University. During her summers throughout school, Kiera worked as an Administrative Assistant at a large national firm, where she was part of the Intellectual Property Team.

Analysis, Canada, Copyrights

Image Copyright in the Age of Social Media

Social media phone

In an age where online image sharing is more prevalent than ever thanks to the abundance of different social media platforms, the question of who has a right to use what photographs or creative visuals may appear increasingly complicated, but the truth is that similar copyright principles that apply to a physical photograph or artistic image also apply to pictures shared over social media. Continue reading for a discussion of social media platforms’ rights to the images posted by their users and for an explanation of Canadian copyright in images.

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Analysis, Canada

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Conservative Party of Canada Decision and Fair Dealing

TV camera

The Federal Court recently released its decision in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Conservative Party of Canada, 2021 FC 425 [CBC] in which it found that the Conservative Party’s use of CBC’s copyrighted materials in their political campaign fell under the fair dealing exception in the Copyright Act. The court deemed the Conservative Party’s use of substantial sections of CBC’s original works to be fair because the usage fell under the category of criticism. In making this decision, the court left the door open for future users of copyrighted materials to argue that their use falls under the fair dealing exception for criticism even when the reproduced work itself is not the target for criticism.

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Analysis, Canada

Are Recipes Protected by Copyright Law?

food on forks

As it currently stands, Canadian courts have not yet addressed the issue of copyright in recipes, but what can we learn from the leading caselaw on the subject from the United States? Although there are important differences between copyright law in Canada and the U.S., it seems likely that Canadian courts would at least consider the state of the law in the U.S. should the issue ever appear in front of them.

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Analysis, Canada, Copyrights

The Winkler v. Hendley Decision and Copyright in Non-Fictional Books

IP Copyrights

The Federal Court recently released its decision in Winkler v. Hendley, 2021 FC 498 [Winkler] in which it found that an author who claims to have published a non-fictional work cannot later claim that the work was in fact fictional in order to get around the principle that facts are not protected by copyright law.

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