[From the The Shifted Librarian] Legal eagle friends, please tell me this doesn't mean what I think it means:

Publishers' Licence Bid Gets Boost

"Legal publishers hope they can use a recent federal court ruling to stop law libraries across the country from photocopying and charging fees for parts of law books without a licence agreement.

In a 132-page decision released on Tuesday, the Federal Court of Appeal said the Law Society of Upper Canada -- the governing body of Ontario lawyers -- had infringed copyrights of three legal publishers by selling their work without a licence." [The Globe and the Mail]

Steven found the full decision. Help!

Jenny, I'll defer to the copyright experts on this one, but it should be noted that there are differences between US and Canadian copyright laws, especially in this context, as the opinion indicates:

In addition, there are significant differences between Anglo-Canadian copyright law and the American standard of originality that was applied in Bender v. West, (1998), 158 F.3d 674 (2nd Cir.). Whether or not the Publishers' works are "original" depends upon the meaning of that term in its statutory context, as explained by existing Anglo-Canadian jurisprudential principles. (at Paragraph 27.)

I'd like to hear more about the impact of this decision as well, because it may impact services we provide through our state law library to prisoners and pro se litigants.  I author and publish many of the same items covered in the Canadian court's opinion -- summaries of judicial decisions, topical indexes and the like -- all for free, all in the public domain.  I've said it before, the Law is Free, and should remain so.  To me, Jenny's call for help to the legal blogosphere is itself a watershed event -- will self-selected experts in the blogging world begin to encroach upon (and supplant) the copyrighted "commentary" provided by the big legal publishers?