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
Share this post
2 Comments

Law Bytes
Episode 260: What the Government Didn’t Want You To Hear About Bill C-4 And Its Weak Political Party Privacy Rules
byMichael Geist

March 2, 2026
Michael Geist
February 23, 2026
Michael Geist
February 9, 2026
Michael Geist
Episode 256: Jennifer Quaid on Taking On Big Tech With the Competition Act's Private Right of Access
February 2, 2026
Michael Geist
Search Results placeholder
Recent Posts
Words Are Not Enough: Countering Relentless Antisemitic Violence in Canada With Action
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 260: What the Government Didn’t Want You To Hear About Bill C-4 And Its Weak Political Party Privacy Rules
Why the Online Harms Act is the Wrong Way to Regulate AI Chatbots
More Transparency Not Police Reporting: Navigating the Safety-Privacy Balance for AI ChatBots
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 259: The Privacy and Surveillance Risks of AI Chatbot Reporting to Police

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.