Deadline for Blacklock's Appeal from Justice Barnes' Judgment Comes and Goes

https://www.blacklocks.ca/

The much watched deadline date of December 12, 2016 has come and gone. This was the deadline for Blacklock's to file a Notice of Appeal of the Decision dated November 10, 2016 from Justice Barnes, of which I noted at time:

The Attorney General of Canada has achieved a clear victory against Blacklock’s Reporter in the latter’s attempt to collect damages of $17,209.10 based upon its supposed institutional subscription rate because a few public servants in the Department of Finance received, read and distributed two Blacklock’s articles about a file they were closely involved in that had been sent to them by a Blacklock’s subscriber.

Here’s the judgment from Justice Robert Barnes – which is unequivocally favourable in terms of fair dealing and even pushes the envelope further by emphasizing that what went on here  was based upon a “legitimate business reason” on the part of the subscriber/sender to the material and a “legitimate business purpose (i.e. to consider whether the stories required a response or correction)” on the part of the Department.

That decision contianed the following among several notable paragrpahs:

 45]           Blacklock’s maintains that this case challenges the viability of its business model including its right to protect news copy behind a subscription-based paywall. The suggestion that Blacklock’s business cannot survive in the face of the minor and discrete use that took place here is essentially an admission that the market places little value on Blacklock’s work-product. All subscription-based news agencies suffer from work-product leakage. But to customers who value easy, timely and unfettered access to news that may not be readily available from other sources, the price of a subscription is worth paying. It also goes without saying that whatever business model Blacklock’s employs it is always subject to the fair dealing rights of third parties. To put it another way, Blacklock’s is not entitled to special treatment because its financial interests may be adversely affected by the fair use of its material. Nothing in these reasons should however be taken as an endorsement of arguably blameworthy conduct in the form of unlawful technological breaches of a paywall, misuse of passwords or the widespread exploitation of copyrighted material to obtain a commercial or business advantage.

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It is will be interesting to see what effect this latest development, namely Blacklock's failure to file a timely Notice of Appeal, has on the other ten (10) Blacklock's cases pending against the Government of Canada and its agencies.  

HPK