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61 Reforms to C-61, Day 20: TPMs – No Exception for Teaching

The "copyright balance" is a challenge that every country faces, yet the choices that each makes says a lot about which concerns are prioritized.  Bill C-61 says virtually nothing about the prospect that teachers may find themselves locked out of materials that they need for the classroom, a position that sends an unfortunate signal about where education ranks as a governmental priority.  The impact of anti-circumvention legislation has attracted significant criticism from some teachers groups, including the Canadian Association of University Teachers (Executive Director Jim Turk noted that "in prohibiting all circumvention, the proposed legislation will lock down a vast amount of digital material, preventing its use for research, education and innovation") and the Film Studies Association of Canada.

Other countries have pursued a different approach with respect to teaching and anti-circumvention legislation. 
For example, Article 166c of Slovenia's copyright law establishes the following limitation on the legal protection of TPMs: 

The right holder who uses technological measures pursuant to this Act, shall make available to the persons having legal access to the subject matter of rights, at their request and without delay, appropriate means on the basis of which they can enforce the limitations to copyright and related rights listed in paragraph 3.

Paragraph 3 includes use for the purposes of teaching.  In other words, in the interest of maintaining a copyright balance, Slovenia recognizes the need to ensure that teachers are not locked out digital materials by requiring those that use TPMs to provide the tools need to ensure that user rights are not undermined.  Supporters of Bill C-61 such as Industry Minister Jim Prentice cannot make the same claim.

9 Comments

  1. Not a troll says:

    So basically it’s all down to Lithuania and Slovenia? In both of those countries, these provisions are enforceable only against domestic publishers. And as you have to be a domestic publisher for this to matter (i.e. a publisher in languages that no-one else speaks) it isn’t much of a solution. Here’s the thing: in Canada, teachers have access to everything they need through copyright licensing that at must universities costs less than a law professor’s salary. This will continue, TPM notwithstanding, as these agreements are adapted to new technologies. Indeed, Bill C-61 strongly pushes them in that direction. If teachers need extensive material to do their job, it should be paid for, like every other element of the teaching process – including their salaries! There isn’t a teaching exception now, and it isn’t needed in the Bill.

  2. Slovenia? says:

    Yeah, in countries like that education publishers only have one customer anyway, the government. Here, most publishers are doing deals with school boards and provinces and unis that include digital rights. Easy enough to make it a condition of doing business

  3. Anonymous says:

    ah yes not a troll & Slovena?, this would be the ‘you don’t need to add it in cause the it’ll work out’ strategy. Very good, the same strategy that says sure make it so record companies don’t need proof to sue Canadians, after all they said they wouldn’t do it. But then I ask you WHY DO THEY INSIST THEY NEED THE ABILITY TO SUE WITHOUT PROOF IF THEY DON”T PLAN ON USING IT? C’mon these are the same record companies that are suing people in the USA, but of course our politicians believe them when they say they won’t.

  4. SteveCamper says:

    You are a troll
    Plain and simple – yes, an exception is required. I would like to see them modernize learning programs to use materials from this century and from this great country of ours. Not allowing teachers past the TPM’s takes away the ability for current events and other modern works that should be part of the curriculum. As my kids go through school I really hope that they can have access to these materials.

    Here’s the way I look at it. Please tell me how a teacher can capitalize (make money) from copying material and using it in their teachings? If they where copying material and selling them to the students or outside of the school for money that is a different matter.

    I can see the value you place on education by your thoughts above…

  5. Strong locks are real
    Slovenia was wise in deciding on this ballance. Placing the responsibility solidly with the rights holders to allow permissible access is the only way to guarantee these rights. We must not assume that we will always be practically able circumvent digital locks, because it is possible to make impenetrable locks. One pervasive example is our entire electronic banking system, which uses digital locks that are indeed unbreakable. We have no guarantee that we will be able to “crack” the locks of future media to which we have rights of fair usage, when unbreakable locks already exist, and their application is ever growing.

    To answer this, we must recognise the need to legally limit the use of digital locks. Slovenia has chosen a fairly good method, but I contend that it still fails to adequately protect the public good. Many rights holders will be uncooperative. Fair circumvention is still left as a priveleged right when it ultimately depends on access to court to succeed. If I were a lone researcher with a tight budget, my rights would be nothing in the face of a powerfull and uncooperative rights holder who simply chose to say “No, so sue me.” There is also the question of orphaned media, where no rights holder can provide access. This will eventually include cases of technical failure, where the codes, or the skills, or the tools are lost by the rights holders themselves. They might just have sold of the subdivision that knew how to bypass the locks of older media. Many strange things happen, and business moves quickly in the digital era. Our laws must prepare for such contingencies.

    I want to reiterate that many digital encryption technologies are unbreakable. With quality digital encryption, cracking computation times in the billions of years are the norm, not the exception. It will only be a matter of time until such robust TPMs become the rule instead of the exception, unless their use is regulated.

    In light of these factors, I think it is sheer madness in our current debate about C-61, to expect that merely disallowing circumvention is the problem. If we are to protect the public rights, and protect our future heritage, TPMs must be recognised as dangerous tools, and regulated carefully, or we will be harmed by them. This will only get worse going into the future.

    One possible solution could be a national digital library of circumvention measures. If a rights holder wants to apply TPMs to their content, then they would also have to publish the circumvention measures to the library. To publish locked content without doing so would be a crime. I don’t know exactly how we would decide on access rights to the library, but many institutions such as libraries, schools, government agencies, etc. would be obvious candidates. This idea has as many pitfalls as advantages, and I offer it only as an example.

    Another idea would be that all TPMs must include a timed self unlock, so that after some short period, perhaps a few years, all TPMs would be void. This could adequately protect market advantages, while ensuring our heritage and public fair use in the longer term. Again, there are many possible pitfalls.

    This is a complicated issue. Clear cut answers are hard to come by. Pitfalls are numerous. Stakes are high, with losses of critically important rights and heritage, vs. critically needed incomes, all in the ballance. C-61 fails to protect the public good, in a way that is unacceptable.

    61 reforms are not enough.

  6. Not a troll says:

    SteveCamper
    I place huge value on education. But I don’t expect it on the backs of others. I think teachers should be properly paid, and that schools should have the money for the resources they need. This has nothing to do with copyright. And nothing to do with whether teachers profit. The computers aren’t free, their time isn’t, and if they need teaching materials, these aren’t free either.

  7. The Slovenian law doesn’t make sense unless the “limitation” on copyright is defined and finite. No-one is going to hand over the means to circumvent if it amounts to a blank cheque.

    And what should an exemption for teaching look like? What limits are fair?

  8. SteveCamper says:

    Point taken
    I agree it should be paid for. In fact, we are paying for it now, in taxation. So indirectly, we are paying for the materials used to teach our kids.

    The issue I have is the laws of supply and demand will enter the picture. What I mean is that good material for teaching may become too expensive to get the rights to use it. Our you will have to go to a private school which would pay more to access the materials. Even at the university and college levels, it is all about using other peoples work and building on it to establish your own. Now if you don’t have the money to access the knowledge…

    A cure for cancer would be an example. How do you propose that we can still get collaboration when information exchanged will have to be paid for? A technique or procedure that is copyrighted and a high price put on it for someone to see how to do it. How much will it cost? Where do you draw the line?

    I think free speech and education are crippled by this bill. Let me ask you this, what is wrong with how we are currently enforcing copyright with respect to education then? Don’t the existing laws cover education appropriately?

  9. Not a Troll says:

    Point taken
    Yes, the existing laws work just fine. If teachers want to make copies for classroom use, every school in Canada has a very cheap copyright license for that purpose.