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Tuesday May 21, 2013 |
With the latest phase of Canadian copyright reform now complete, the
government may soon turn to the question of what comes next. Given last
year's major legislative overhaul and the landmark series of copyright
decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada, significant substantive
changes are unlikely to be on the agenda for the foreseeable future.
Instead, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues that it is time for the government to set its sights on the
Copyright Board of Canada, a relatively obscure regulatory body that
sets the fees to be paid for the use of copyright works. The Board is
largely unknown in public circles, but it has played a pivotal role in
establishing the costs associated with private copying (including a
one-time iPod levy), educational copying, and the use of music by
Canadian broadcasters.
The litany of complaints about the Board has mounted in recent years:
the public rarely participates in its activities due to high costs, it
moves painfully slowly by only issuing a handful of decisions each year,
and its rules encourage copyright collectives and users to establish
extreme positions that make market-driven settlements more difficult.
Moreover, over the past ten months, the Supreme Court has ruled that its
approach to fair dealing was unreasonable, the Board itself admitted to
palpable error in a decision that resulted in a hugely inflated tariff,
and it has ignored the will of Parliament in reshaping Canadian
copyright law. The Board may keep a steady stream of lawyers and
economists busy, but it is time to acknowledge that it is broken.
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Monday May 13, 2013 |
Last month, the University
of Ottawa Press published The
Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the
Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law, an effort by many of
Canada's leading copyright scholars to begin the process of
examining the long-term implications of the copyright pentalogy.
As I've noted in previous posts, the book is available for purchase and
is also available as a free
download under a Creative Commons licence. The book can be downloaded
in its entirety or each of the 14 chapters can be downloaded
individually.
The book includes two articles on technological neutrality, whose
inclusion as a foundational principle of Canadian copyright was a
landmark aspect of the copyright pentalogy. The message from the Court
is clear: copyright law should not stand in the way of technological
progress and potentially impede the opportunities for greater access
afforded by the Internet through the imposition of additional fees or
restrictive rules that create extra user costs. Viewed in this light,
technological neutrality as a principle within Canadian copyright may
have the same dramatic effects on the law as the articulation of users’
rights did in 2004.
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Monday March 18, 2013 |
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The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has released a report that finds that online music piracy does not harm sales. The report
examined the browsing habits of more than 16,000 European consumers. It
found that an increase in clicks on infringing sites led to a small
increase in clicks on authorized music sales sites.copyright, ec, music Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareMonday March 18, 2013 |
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Wednesday March 13, 2013 |
With only limited fanfare, earlier this month Industry Minister
Christian Paradis introduced Bill C-56, the Combating Counterfeit
Products Act. Since no one supports counterfeit products - there are
legitimate concerns associated with health and safety - measures
designed to address the issue would presumably enjoy public and
all-party support. Yet within days of its introduction, the bill was the
target of attacks from both opposition parties and the public.
The NDP raised the issue during Question Period in the House of Commons,
accusing the government of trying to implement the widely discredited
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) "through the backdoor." The
public also picked up on the issue, noting that the bill appears to be
less about protecting Canadians and more about caving to U.S. pressure
(the U.S. called on Canada to implement ACTA on the same day the bill
was tabled).
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the concerns associated with the bill fall into two main categories:
substance and ACTA implementation. The substantive concerns start with
the decision to grant customs officials broad new powers without court
oversight. Under the bill, customs officials are required to assess
whether goods entering or exiting the country infringe any copyright or
trademark rights.
acta, c-56, copyright, Counterfeit, Counterfeiting Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareWednesday March 13, 2013 |
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