America-Israel Patent Law Blog

I don’t think that hitherto I’ve seen IP used as an excuse for Jew-hatred, but we’re living in interesting times.

The Jerusalem Post and others report today that the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has refused to show “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue”, a film about a retired IDF general, Noam Tibon, who went into battle in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023, when he heard from his son that the son and the son’s family were hiding from terrorists there.  The film includes material filmed by the terrorists themselves on October 7, and the ostensible reason for TIFF’s refusal is concern over copyright infringement for showing the film that incorporates arts of those clips.

I’m not the TIFF’s lawyer, but if I was, I’d tell them something like this:

First, in order for TIFF be sued, the “author” of any individual clip would first need to come forth and identify himself.  

Second, many of these clips have already been incorporated into other films and news reports, and shown extensively around the world. To date, no suit for copyright infringement has been filed against anyone for those activities. The likelihood of TIFF being the first to be sued is negligible.

Third, the use made of the clips constitutes “fair use”.

Fourth, no court in any civilized country would reward terrorists who used a GoPro camera to record themselves raping women or burning babies alive, or reward “journalists” who participated in such activities in order to document them, by letting such a suit even proceed to trial, let alone by finding for the plaintiff(s).

Fifth, the previous four points assume that whoever made the clips actually have copyright in them. Without even reading the Canadian copyright statute, I would argue that the statute does not extend protection to the creators of such clips.

Sixth, if such a suit proceeded and TIFF was found liable for copyright, how would the plaintiff collect?

Now, of course, it’s possible that TIFF’s actual lawyers did tell them those things. In which case, “copyright” is an excuse, not a reason, to refuse to show the film. In which case, the people running TIFF are just a bunch of Jew-hating SOBs. Canada seems to have plenty of those these days.

I suppose, for the sake of completeness, I should mention one more possibility: maybe a Canadian court really WOULD allow such a suit to proceed, and really would find for the plaintiff(s).  If that’s the case, Canada doesn’t just have a lot of Jew-hating bastards, but is actually a lost cause, already on par with classic repressive regimes like the USSR.