Author Archives: Techtonik Legal

Allowing Insurers to Pay Ransoms from Ransomware Attacks: A Bad Good Idea

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Faced with a seemingly endless series of cyberattacks through ransomware, some businesses are now turning to insurers to make sure they are in a position to pay eventual ransoms. Insurers indeed realized a while back that some companies would pay to insure against the risk of facing cyberextortion and having to pay to recover their own data. Once insured with such coverage, a business can essentially have the insurer pay the ransom that cybercriminals are requesting once the business falls victim to ransomware that encrypts its data.

Recently, the European insurer AXA decided to stop offering this type of coverage, in France, including because of certain comments from French authorities about the fact this type of coverage was essentially counterproductive and, as such, may be something that France would soon prohibit. Indeed, according to many (including the FBI), the existence of insurance coverage of this type in fact encourages the ransomware industry, because it increases the odds of managing to convince the typical victim of such a cyberattack to pay a ransom.

In what may be a clue that not offering this type of coverage does play into the hands of criminals, shortly after its announcement, AXA’s Web servers were the object of a DDoS attack from criminals, in what may be seen as retaliation. It seems criminals do want insurers to keep paying ransoms, which may be a reason to rethink allowing it, in the future, if you ask me.

Even though forbidding payments by insurers is not likely to stop ransomware, many are now calling for a global strategy that may allow us to collectively fight the problem, including by stopping  to throw oil on the fire, so to speak. Sure insuring against this risk is convenient but is it the right thing to do in the grand scheme of things? The question stands.

Reuse of Clips from a CBC Broadcast, in Online Ads, Held Fair Dealing

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The Federal Court (la «F.C.») recently gave us a copyright decision worth mentioning in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Conservative Party of Canada (2021 FC 425), a judgment that provides us with a rare interpretation and application of the exception relating to criticism.

As one may remember, the Copyright Act (the “Act”) contains a series of exceptions allowing reuse of copyrighted content to certain ends that fall under the category of what the act consider “Fair Dealing”. One of those (described in Section 29.1 of the Act) allows using works for purposes of criticism, a specific exception that the F.C. had the opportunity to interpret in the recent CBC case.

This decision stems from a lawsuit by the CBC against the Conservative Party of Canada (the “CPP”) further to the use of video segments from a political debate (originally aired by the CBC) in online advertising run in 2019, without permission from the CBC. According to the CPP, given that the goal of the political ads at issue was to criticize the Prime Minister, the use of portions of CBC broadcasts should be protected as fair dealing. Contrary to the usual attempt to invoke the exception at issue, the criticism in this case was not a criticism of the work being copied (the broadcast itself) but rather criticism of an individual shown on-screen and the ideas and views he expressed. So, the question stood: could such criticism qualify under Section 29.1 of the Act so as to protect the CPP from an infringement claim?

Upon examining the issue, the F.C. had to agree that the goal of the ads at issue was clearly to criticize the Prime-Minister and his views and decisions. Given this, the F.C. concludes we are indeed in a situation where copyrighted materials was used for purposes of criticism. Given the treatment of fair dealing by the Supreme Court of Canada (and others) over the past few years, such exceptions should be interpreted broadly, so as to balance adequately the rights of creators with those of users.

According to the F.C., the exception relating to criticism may of course extend to the works that are reproduced but may also apply in other cases, including criticism of ideas, values and anything that has been expressed in the works that were reused. In the case at hand, portions of political debates during which the Prime-Minister expressed certain views could thus be reused for purposes of criticizing him, his ideas and his handling of certain issues. At law, this was clearly criticism.

Doing so, the F.C. sets aside a common interpretation of Section 29.1 of the Act, namely that this exception was included in the Act to solely allow criticizing works, including for example by literary critics. On the contrary, according to the F.C., nothing in this provision of the Act restricts what the criticism at issue can relate to. The article at issue simply allows reuse for purposes of criticism, without specifying what the criticism must relate to.

After holding this was indeed a case of reuse for purposes of criticism, the court then applied the usual test to determine whether reuse of the materials at issue in this case has been “fair”, agreeing it has been. Given the fair dealing defense applied, the F.C. rejected the infringement proceedings against the C.P.C.

The F.C. decision at issue represents yet one more example of a trend, during the last few years, as courts gradually broaden the meaning of fair dealing exceptions under Canadian copyright law.

So, What the Hell is a NFT, Legally?

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As you may already know, the Internet has been abuzz recently with “NFT“s, or Non-Fungible Tokens, an offshoot of blockchain technology, a form of distributed ledger. Basically, an NFT is an electronic token (an asset, of sorts) that been created and placed on a blockchain , and which is capable of containing certain information and passing from one buyer to the next.

Recently, artists realized that they could personally create and authenticate tokens but associating them with some of their works (think copyright), in essence creating digital tidbits capable of being bought, sold and exchanged, over time. This, couple with a limited supply, created an instant collectors’ market of NFT enthusiasts and who are now investing in upcoming artists, in a manner that is strangely reminiscent of Renaissance patrons of the arts. This allows artists to make some money and collectors to… well… collect.

The numerous stories I’ve been seeing online about this lead me to reflect as to what exactly these little electronic tidbits are, legally I mean. Are people buying art, perhaps electronic copies, or something else?

Legally, the first thing we should note is that this little trend does NOT involve people dealing or trading art (or I.P.) online. No real transfer of rights (intellectual or otherwise) gets created or transferred when buying an NFT-type electronic token, not really anyway. In effect, what will happen upon any of these purchases is that a transaction will be recorded on the blockchain at issue, showing you as the “owner” of such and such token. Period.

Does this grant you a real right of ownership to that intangible? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing for sure, what these transactions do NOT do, is transferring title to any intellectual property, such as the copyrights in this drawing or this photo, for example. So, contrary to some may be thinking reading stories about the NFT-craze, people are not buying the I.P. to copyrighted works using this scheme.

Sure, people may be buying (using the term loosely) something that was created by Mr. X, and then get bragging-rights about it, but little else. Sure the NFT may be one of the few linked to that particular piece of artwork (a music album, for example) but little else. Buying an NFT does NOT get you any real rights to the actual artwork or the I.P. to it.

The truth of it is, at law, we’re not dealing with any asset that can be readily categorized or put in a neat little box here. NFTs are rather a pure creation of the electronic age, before any rights or legislation applies to them. In effect, those who create NFTs decide what little rights (let’s call them that) they are deciding with accompany their offering of NFTs. In practice, this will usually translate to fairly little, for example a personal right (read license) to display a piece of artwork for one’s personal pleasure, etc.

So, if your reflex upon reading this is to ask what a NFT is good for, the honest answer may be: to fill an artist’s pockets. That said, don’t get me wrong, NFTs are a cool idea and I’m all for encouraging budding artists with a modicum of intermediaries who’ll profit in between; let’s just be clear as to what little legal effects are created when buying one of these tokens. At least for now anyway, we’re not dealing with anything that has inherent great value here, aside from what other collectors may be after that is.