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TransCanada going ahead with Energy East line between Alberta and New Brunswick

The Canadian Press

CALGARY—TransCanada Corp. has decided to go ahead with its Energy East pipeline project to transport crude oil to Canadian refineries and export terminals as far east as New Brunswick.

The proposed pipeline system will take crude from western provinces as far east as Saint John, N.B., passing through other Canadian cities, including Montreal and Quebec City.

It will include some existing TransCanada pipelines between western Canada and Montreal plus new lines to be constructed to take the crude further east.

TransCanada estimates the project will cost about $12 billion, excluding the value of its converted Canadian Mainline pipeline system.

The project has been backed by provincial premiers but faces opposition from environmental and other groups.

“This is an historic opportunity to connect the oil resources of western Canada to the consumers of eastern Canada, creating jobs, tax revenue and energy security for all Canadians for decades to come,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and CEO.

He said it’s one answer to the question of how to move crude oil from Western Canada to refineries and consumers in other markets.

However, Girling also made a pitch for the politically sensitive Keystone XL project — a delayed TransCanada pipeline that would stretch from Alberta to Texas, if it gets the required approvals.

The Harper government has argued that Keystone XL is good for both the United States and Canada, but President Barack Obama has yet to give his go-ahead to that line, which has faced intense lobbying both for and against.

“Energy East is one solution for transporting crude oil, but the industry also requires additional pipelines such as Keystone XL to transport growing supplies of Canadian and U.S. crude oil to existing North American markets,” Girling said.

“Both pipelines are required to meet the need for safe and reliable pipeline infrastructure and are underpinned with binding, long-term agreements.”

 

Pop star Rihanna wins t-shirt copyright battle with fashion giant

Ashante Infantry, Business Reporter

Pop star Rihanna has defeated British retailer Topshop in a U.K. court over charges that the company infringed on her rights by selling a t-shirt with her face on it.

The issue in the closely-watched case was not whether the popular clothier was allowed to depict her image, but whether it gave the impression that she had endorsed this specific product.

The singer, who filed suit against the retailer under her legal name Robyn Rihanna Fenty, did not attend the four-day hearing.

About 12,000 of the long, muscle tees, which carried a giant photo of the singer, were sold online and in shops between March and August 2012. They were initially called Rihanna Tank and Photographic Rihanna motif tank, but the singer’s name, which is a registered trade mark for clothing, was quickly dropped.

Topshop told the court that it had permission from the photographer who captured Rihanna’s image during a 2011 video shoot for her Talk That Talk album in Ireland.

While individuals can own the copyright to specific pictures of themselves, the court don’t generally allow individuals to control depictions of themselves.

The crux of this case was the principle of “passing off” which meant establishing that Rihanna had an established public reputation which had been misrepresented and damaged by the sale of the shirts.

“I think the relationship between this image and the images of Rihanna for the album and the video shoot would be noticed by her fans,” said Justice Colin Birss in his ruling.

“This is an important point. This image is not just recognizably Rihanna, it looks like a publicity shot for what was then a recent musical release. To someone who knew Rihanna but did not know her current work, the image is simply one of the person concerned. However to her fans who knew her work, I think this particular image might well be thought to be part of the marketing campaign for that project.”

In court, where she described as trend setter and style icon, Rihanna’s representatives maintained that her previous association with Topshop, through contests, wearing the retailer’s clothes (about which the company tweeted) and formerly authorized goods led fans to believe she had signed off on the shirts.

“Topshop is perhaps a victim of its own popularity with celebrities, as this popularity — and Topshop’s popularity with Rihanna in particular — was held to enhance the likelihood of consumers believing the garment to be authorized,” Jeremy Hertzog, a lawyer at Mishcon de Reya, which represented Topshop’s parent company Arcadia Group Plc, told Bloomberg.

Although the judge has not yet ruled for a financial award, he acknowledged the possible impact on the singer’s partnerships with the likes of fashion retailer River Island and concert merchandiser Live Nation.

“For one thing it amounts to sales lost to her merchandising business,” he said. “It also represents a loss of control over her reputation in the fashion sphere. The fact the garment is a high quality product does not negate that aspect of damage. It is a matter for the claimants and not Topshop to choose what garments the public think are endorsed by her.”

Rihanna’s representatives also expressed dissatisfaction with the actual image of the entertainer captured on the shirt.

“It is not an unflattering image, albeit no doubt if Rihanna had authorized it, the image might have been touched up before it was released,” said Birss.

Although unauthorized celebrity garments are common, British courts are unlikely to see a run of lawsuits, Simon Bennett, a partner at Fox Williams who deals in trademark disputes in the fashion industry told The Guardian.

“People may say that this is an extension of law into image rights, but there isn’t a law of image rights in the UK,” he explained. “Celebrities who think it is open season to sue anybody who uses their image or mentions their name will get a rude awakening.”

With files from The Star’s wire services