Law faculty member Katie Sykes published an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun today. The article outlines her concern over what she calls aqua-gag: aquarium industry distortion of copyright law as a means to silence aquarium critics.

Sykes’ op-ed specifically highlights the Vancouver Aquarium’s lawsuit against a documentary filmmaker.

She discusses the aqua-gag trend, which she explains is when industry claims copyright infringement (for example from film footage) in the legal context, to control what is said about it—ultimately acting as a mechanism to gag critics.

Sykes teaches copyright law in her first-year property law class. As it happened, the Vancouver Aquarium case was timely.

“My classes on copyright were right around the time that the first ruling on the Aquarium’s application for a temporary injunction came out, so the class was able to discuss it in the context of other cases they were studying on copyright infringement and fair dealing,” said Sykes.

Sykes also has an interest in animal law, and presented at the 23rd annual Animal Law Conference held in Portland last fall.

As for students interested in animal law, there is also a Law Students in Defense of Animal Rights Club.