BlogsCanada, a popular directory of more than 7,700 Canadian blogs, has received a Cease and Desist letter from the Canadian government for trademark and copyright infringement. While the site does spoof the style and formatting of the Government of Canada site, the first words on every page are “Definitely NOT the Government of Canada”. You can read BlogsCanada’s press release, view screenshots and see the letter. This is reminiscent of the PaulMartinTime.ca issue previously discussed on Slashdot, and reflects the ruling party’s increasingly hard line on digital rights issues.
Ironically, I’m more conversant with American copyright law than Canadian. Still, doesn’t this fall under “fair use” for parody and satire? Alternately, I was under the impression that our government wasn’t legally able to hold copyrights or trademarks. Clearly, I was wrong.
Regardless, in light of the Liberal Party’s recent behaviour and with an election on the horizon, this is the wrong time to be going after citizen-journalists. In practical terms, no one is going to confuse BlogsCanada with the government’s actual site. More importantly, how is the government going to benefit from convincing Jim Elve to change his site? The satisfaction of a job well done?
James Bow has more (and more articulate) things to say on this subject, or here’s a whole host of other people with similar views.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I was also under the impression that our Gov’t maintained a mandate of not claiming copyright or trademarks.
As for Canadian copyright law, well it used to be straight forward, we followed the Berne convention and corresponding worldwide copyright laws. However, since the U.S. decided to depart from those with the DMCA and our own conflicting recordable media tariffs/tax/whatever, it’s all been open season for creating new copyright related laws.
What we need is a new Berne Convention of some sort, but the big issue to resolve is whether Copyright is in support of the populace, the creators of work, or big business… it’s a mess.
interestingly enough… from China (where I am now) James Bow’s website doesn’t come up… might he be blocked?
But coming to the BlogsCanada issue, reading the letter, it clearly seems like an attempt to cut his legs off by other means… if you get my drift. Clearly the Government of Canada cannot, under any circumstance, censor a website… but forcing one to redesign everything would certainly 1) take it off the air for a while (those pesky critics) and, 2) prove his (supposed) weakness into listening to higher authority… thus complying to them.
A sad story, but a happy one instead. Looking at the fact that they sent a letter and not a request to present himself in court, in my opinion, shows that they are scared to actually act on this… thus trying to employ scare tactics instead of actual actions.
But I do agree, it’s a mess…
I used to work in the Communications Department at the national headquarters for Citizenship and Immigration in Ottawa and Hull. While there, I received a thorough briefing on the use of the Canadamark and its related components. The Canadamark is a legal trademark, owned by the federal government, and its use and reproduction are heavily regulated. I seem to recall that government graphic designers had created a special font for the mark — it had something to do with the curve of the first “c” and last “a”. The bars on the flag were also specially designed to overcome optical illusions.
Although it may seem like the feds are being nit-picky, it is important for the Government of Canada to protect its trademark. Although any savvy person can tell BlogsCanada from the federal canada.gc.ca site, the problem has more to do with overall use of the mark — in any medium. If several people or companies reproduced variations of the government’s logo and the government did not pursue its mark, then the door would be open for someone to say that the feds might have a trademark but that they weren’t protecting it. And this would provide enough wiggle-room for someone to blow away protection for the government’s Canadamark.
Most Canadians and even world peoples instantly recognize the Canadamark. If the government doesn’t defend it, all sorts of people could be misled by people purporting to represent the government. I’m sure BlogsCanada has no such intention, but others might. Everything from developing nation wheat shipments to the Canadarm and from the Canada Revenue Agency to Immigration Canada could be subject to the whims of miscreants. And, no, I don’t mean the ones in Ottawa. 🙂