Canada: Publishing

The Supreme Court of Canada, in Robertson v. Thomson Corp., clarified the respective rights of authors and publishers in the thorny area of collective works.

In Robertson v. Thomson Corporation, the Ontario Court of Appeal has considered the right of a freelance author, who had contributed articles to a newspaper, to restrain publication of her articles in electronic archiving and search databases and CD-ROMs. The Court held that, subject to any applicable defences, the reproduction of the freelance author’s articles in these electronic databases without her authorization infringed her copyright in the articles.