Strange News Stories re VANOC and SITA

First, the CBC story on VANOC using "copyright" law to stop ticket resellers. The CBC reports that:

Organizers are also suing Coast2Coast for breaching copyright legislation by using the words Vancouver 2010 and Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

Without seeing the statement of claim, it rather sounds to me like the reporter is using the word "copyright" rather carelessly, as many reporters do. I strongly suspect that the law suit is based on the special sui generis statute known as C-47, which is a very twisted version of trade-marks law, if anything.

The other strange story is entitled Sita Sings the Copyright Blues, wherein it is reported that a film maker named Nin Paley reportedly paid $50,000 for what presumably is a synch license for some music, allowing for the production of 5,000 DVDs. That's $10 per DVD, an absolutely astonishing amount. The film maker is trying to raise money to get this back. All very strange indeed.

HK