Post Tagged with: "copyright"

John F. Kennedy, Georges Vanier, John Diefenbaker, Jacqueline Kennedy and Olive Diefenbaker, Ottawa, May 1961, Duncan Cameron. Library and Archives Canada, PA-154665 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/cT2zqW

The Harm from Budget 2022’s Hidden Copyright Term Extension, Part Two: The Generational Loss of Access to Canadian History

The decision to agree to a copyright term extension in the USMCA is harmful policy, made worse by the decision to bury plans for implementation in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s Budget 2022. As a result, there will be a two decade moratorium on new works entering the public domain, creating an enormous negative impact on access to Canadian culture and history for a generation. My first post examining the cost focused on some of Canada’s most decorated authors, whose works will be locked out of the public domain for a generation.

The negative impact of term extension on access to Canada’s history is equally damaging. Historians will lose public domain access to the works and papers some of Canada’s most notable leaders and figures of modern times, including leading Prime Ministers, Premiers, First Nations leaders, and Supreme Court justices. They include:

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April 13, 2022 1 comment News
Gabrielle Roy by Ronny Jacques. Ronny Jaques Fonds. Library and Archives Canada, e010957756 (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/2gRtqwf

The Harm from Budget 2022’s Hidden Copyright Term Extension, Part One: Entry to Public Domain of Canadian Authors Lost for a Generation

Copyright term extension was rightly resisted by successive Canadian governments for decades because it offers few benefits and raises significant costs. The decision to agree to an extension in the USMCA is harmful policy, made worse by the decision to bury plans for implementation in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s Budget 2022. As a result, there will be a two decade moratorium on new works entering the public domain, creating an enormous impact on access to Canadian culture and history for a generation. The plan has been described as a tax on consumers given that the new costs for Canadian education could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Further, the policy will create barriers to digitization initiatives that would otherwise increase access to works for all Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

While there is overwhelming independent academic and economic study on the harms, it is the real world stories that bring the harm arising from the policy to life. Today’s post is the first in a series that highlights just some of the works that were scheduled to enter the public domain in the coming years that will be locked out for a generation. As discussed in this post, the best approach for the government to mitigate against these harms is the implementation of a registration requirement. Registration would allow rights holders that want the extension to get it, while ensuring that many other works enter the public domain at the international standard of life plus 50 years. By providing for life plus 50 and the option for an additional 20 years, Canadian law would be consistent with Berne Convention formalities requirements and with its trade treaty obligations.

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April 12, 2022 7 comments News
Fortune Global Forum 2018 #27 by John Lehmann/Fortune  FORTUNE Global Forum (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/2c3SF2A

Chrystia Freeland’s Hidden Tax: How Canada Should Implement the Copyright Term Extension Buried in Budget 2022

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled Budget 2022 yesterday. While much of the focus was on housing and the environment, buried in Annex 3 at page 274 was a promise to extend the term of copyright from the international standard of life of the author plus 50 years to life plus 70 years. The extension fulfills a commitment in the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement with the specific implementation details presumably to come in several weeks in the Budget Implementation Act. This is both a terrible policy making approach (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015 in part on a pledge not to use the budget to sneak through legislation this way) and terrible policy that experts have termed a “tax on consumers”. Indeed, term extension was long opposed by successive Canadian governments both Liberal and Conservative for good reason: it creates significant costs with limited to no benefits.

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April 8, 2022 8 comments News
year-6786741_1920 by Tumisu https://pixabay.com/photos/year-2022-track-new-year-calendar-6786741/

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 113: The Year in Canadian Digital Law and Policy

The past year has been an incredibly active one for Canadian digital law and policy with legislative battles over Bill C-10, controversial consultations on online harms and copyright, important Supreme Court decisions, new digital taxes, and an emerging trade battle with the United States. For this final Law Bytes podcast of 2021, I go solo without a guest to talk about the most significant trends and developments in Canadian digital policy from the past year and to think a bit about what may lie ahead next year.

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December 20, 2021 3 comments Podcasts
Fortune Global Forum 2018 by  John Lehmann/Fortune (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/Nn98GR

Should Have Seen This Coming: U.S. Raises Prospect of Retaliation Over Canada’s Digital Services Tax Plans

For the past two years, Canadian digital tax policy has been on a collision course with Canadian trade policy. The Liberal government committed in the 2019 election campaign to a digital services tax primarily designed to target large U.S. technology companies that generate significant revenues in Canada from online advertising and user data. The policy has been adopted in several other countries, repeatedly sparking a response from the U.S. that threatens to retaliate with tariffs on sensitive sectors of the economy. For example, after France announced plans for a similar tax, the U.S. threatened to levy billions in tariffs on French products.

As the trade threats escalate, the effort to strike an international agreement on the issue has gained increasing traction (my Law Bytes podcast last February with Professor Itai Grinberg provides a great backgrounder into the issue). After a preliminary deal was struck in October on an international approach, the U.S. dropped the tariff threat against several countries. Yet as efforts to finalize and implement the deal continue, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced this week that new legislation will be introduced to create a Canadian digital services tax (this is distinct from digital sales taxes, which are currently in effect).

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December 16, 2021 3 comments News