Use yourself sentence. And follow that format. 1. Robertson v. Thomson Corp. 200

Question

Use yourself sentence. And follow that format. 1. Robertson v. Thomson Corp. 2006, 274 D.L.R. (4th) 138; [2006] 2 SCR 363; 2006 SCC 43 (CanLII In 1995 Heather Robinson, a freelance journalist, wrote two articles for the Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail republished the articles, including them on CD-ROMs as essentially an archived record of the newspaper. They also made the articles available through an online database. She brought this action for breach of her copyright in those articles. She challenged both the inclusion of the newspaper in the CD-ROM as well as well as the making available of the articles in the online database as unauthorized reproductions of her work without compensation. She sued, claiming a violation of her copyright. Explain the arguments on both sides and the likely outcome.

Explanation / Answer

Plaintiff Perspective - Here, as given, Heather Robinson wrote articles for globe and mail, which is one of the leading newspapers in Canada. Robinson's perspective here is that if she had written articles for G&M, they should have been published only in the newspaper, and shouldn't have been archived and provided to the people through an online database. This makes Globe and Mail guilty of copyright violation and should hence pay.

Defendant Perspective - Defendant, that is Globe and Mail, argues that it shouldn't pay because it is completely under the regulations to archive the articles which belong to them. They had an agreement with Robinson to use her article in whichever way they found it suitable and that is what they had done,and hence were under no obligation to pay her the penalty.

Arguments -

Plaintiff - 1) Archiving of articles was not mentioned in the agreement, hence was breach of copyright.

2) The payments made were for a single time usage, and hence didn't allow Globe and Mail to use it again and again by archiving and republishing.

Defendant - 1) Handing over the article to any publishing house gives them the right to do whatever they want to do with the article, unless they use it against the author.

2) Archiving is done of all the articles as they can be needed by the people in future as well. The payments, in any case, are one time only and covers all the cases of future use as well.

Ruling - The ruling in such a case depends upon whether the clause of future usage is written in the agreement or not. The clause, then gives Globe and Mail the right to republish as their wishes and archive it as well. If not, there's a chance that Robinson might be able to tilt the case on her side, but even in that case Globe and Mail can use the references of other newspapers and its earlier agreements where they had not mentioned any such line of future usage, but still was pretty understood to all the authors, and the case of future usage is 'obviously explicit' and need not be said (is well known to everyone). Overall, the case looks stronger in favour of Globe and Mail.

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