The Statute Bard strikes again; The Glittering Prizes

Having stunned the civilised world last year by rendering the entire US Copyright Code into verse, blogger extraordinaire, bard and board games enthusiast Yehuda Berlinger has just given the same treatment to the Canadian Copyright Code.

Right: The Statute-Bard, an artist's impression

There are some sweet little stanzas for the discerning reader to savour. Favourites among the IPKat's choice verses are the following:

Unless paid for work
In dollars or yen,
The copyright owner's
The one with the pen (per s.13)

and

Warnings hung next to
Copy machines,
Exempt from infringement
Public places, it seems (see s.30.3)

but best of all is

Don't bring to Canada
Infringing stuff
What they have now is
More than enough (cf s.44)

The IPKat salutes Mr Berlinger as the IP Poet Laureate and urges him to enter his next haiku competition. Merpel says, I keep wondering if his poem doesn't infringe copyright in the underlying structure and content of the Canadian Code ...


The Executive Committee of ATRIP (the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property Law) is proud to launch its essay competition for young researchers in Intellectual Property Law. The rules are as follows:

"The paper, which can pertain to any topic related to intellectual property law, should be written in English or French and submitted to the Committee, care of Professor Jan Rosén (Jan.rosen@juridicum.su.se), by 31 August 2007. The text of the paper should be no longer than 8,000 words, including footnotes. It should be presented in a way that ensures the author's anonymity when it is circulated to the members of the Executive Committee. The author of the paper should be no older than 33 years of age as of 31 December 2007.

The authors of the best three papers will be

(a) mentioned as such on the ATRIP website in an ad hoc section;

(b) invited to be speakers at the 2008 ATRIP international annual conference in Munich;

(c) exempted from the registration fee at that conference and from the ATRIP membership fee for 2008.

The Committee reserves the right not to proclaim any or all winners, should the quality of the papers be considered insufficient".

The IPKat hopes the Committee has more luck in making entrants keep to the word limit than Jeremy does when trying to keep the lid on the length of articles submitted to JIPLP. Merpel says, this is a great opportunity for any aspiring young academic - so take it if you can.