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Canada’s Library Community Speaks Out on Copyright

The Canadian Library Association is meeting this week in Ottawa and the association is marking the occasion by releasing a public letter to Ministers Bernier and Oda on copyright reform.  Representing 57,000 library staff and thousands of libraries, the CLA recommends "caution and reflection".  Should the government move on copyright, the CLA focuses on two issues – anti-circumvention legislation and fair dealing.  On anti-circumvention legislation, the letter supports linking TPMs to copyright infringing purposes and warns against the privacy implications of TPMs.  On fair dealing, the letter states that "Canadians will not tolerate a copyright regime that requires licenses for uses that are covered by the fair dealing provisions of the Act." 

Meanwhile, add the Canadian Association of Research Libraries to the list of organizations speaking out on the privacy implications of TPMs.  CARL recently released its own letter supporting last month's flurry of letter from privacy commissioners and the privacy community.

4 Comments

  1. Dumb question of the day, what’s a TPM?

  2. answer
    technological protection measure

  3. Library Journals
    Librarians should be an extremely important lobby group, especially since they represent the interests of a great number of people, including scientists and researchers. A major issue is the use of online journal subscriptions. Many journals are now only carried in the electronic versions by libraries. Should the library lapse on their subscription, they will no longer have access to the years that they paid for their subscription(notably unlike paper journals). This could put libraries in a tenuous position, as publishers could keep upping subscription rates in order for libraries to maintain access to past journals.

  4. library journals
    I’ve always wondered whether libraries could make use of the exception for Management and Maintenance of Collections to save backlist e-journals once subscriptions lapse…