The Vancouver Sun reports on how the B.C. government is using crown copyright to constrain the publication of documents released under freedom of information legislation.
B.C. Government Uses Copyright To Block Access to Information
April 7, 2008
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Episode 243: What Are Canada’s Digital Policy Plans as Parliament Returns from the Summer Break?
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Fair Use?
The fact that the BC gov’t would even do that is a gross misrepresentation of the intent of copyright (to protect authors from knock-offs and plagiarism). Further, the transparency of this attempt at censorship under the guise of adhering to the FOI is galling. I hope somebody gets canned over this, though I doubt it.
I wonder though, and perhaps this is a leading question, does BC/Canada not have fair use provisions that would cover publication in the press for purposes of criticisms and/or reporting?
Private government?
It boggles the mind how any government publication could be copyright protected in the first place. Isn\’t the government publicly funded? Maybe not.