Copyright Implications Of A "Right To Be Forgotten"? Or How To Take-Down The Internet Archive. - Intellectual Property

Canada: Copyright Implications Of A "Right To Be Forgotten"? Or How To Take-Down The Internet Archive.

They say the internet never forgets. From time to time, someone wants to challenge that dictum.

In our earlier posts, we discussed the so-called "right to be forgotten" in connection with a Canadian trade-secret misappropriation and passing-off case and an EU privacy case. In a brief ruling in October, the Federal Court reviewed a copyright claim that fits into this same category. In Davydiuk v. Internet Archive Canada, 2014 FC 944 (CanLII), the plaintiff sought to remove certain pornographic films that were filmed and posted online years earlier. By 2009, the plaintiff had successfully pulled down the content from the original sites on which the content had been hosted. However, the plaintiff discovered that the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine" had crawled and retained copies of the content as part of its archive.

If you're not familiar with the Wayback Machine, here is the court's description: "The 'Wayback Machine' is a collection of websites accessible through the websites 'archive.org' and 'web.archive.org'. The collection is created by software programs known as crawlers, which surf the internet and store copies of websites, preserving them as they existed at the time they were visited. According to Internet Archive, users of the Wayback Machine can view more than 240 billion pages stored in its archive that are hosted on servers located in the United States. The Wayback Machine has six staff to keep it running and is operated from San Francisco, California at Internet Archive's office. None of the computers used by Internet Archive are located in Canada."

The plaintiff used copyright claims to seek the removal of this content from the Internet Archive servers, and these efforts included DMCA notices in the US. Ultimately unsatisfied with the results, the plaintiff commenced an action in Federal Court in Canada based on copyrights. The Internet Archive disputed that Canada was the proper forum: it argued that California was more appropriate since all of the servers in question were located in the US and Internet Archive was a California entity.

Since Internet Archive raised a doctrine known as "forum non conveniens", it had to convince the court that the alternative forum (California) was "clearly more appropriate" than the Canadian court. It is not good enough to simply that there is an appropriate forum elsewhere, rather the party making this argument has to show that clearly the other forum is more appropriate, fairer and more efficient. The Federal Court was not convinced, and it concluded that there was a real and substantial connection to Canada. The case will remain in Canadian Federal Court. A few interesting points come out of this decision:

This is not a privacy case. It turns upon copyright claims, since the plaintiff in this case had acquired the copyrights to the original content. Nevertheless, the principles in this case (to determine which court is the proper place to hear the case) could be applied to any number of situations, including privacy, copyright or personality rights.
Interestingly, the fact that the plaintiff had used American DMCA notices did not, by itself, convince the court that the US was the best forum for this case.
The court looked to a recent trademark decision (Homeaway.com Inc. v. Hrdlicka) to show that a trademark simply appearing on the computer screen in Canada constituted use and advertising in Canada for trademark law purposes. Here, accessing the content in Canada from servers located in the US constituted access in Canada for copyright purposes.
While some factors favoured California, and some favoured Canada, the court concluded that California was not clearly more appropriate. This shows there is a first-mover advantage in commencing the action in the preferred jurisdiction.

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