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
2 Comments
Recent Posts
Carney’s Digital Recalibration: How the Government is Trending Away from Justin Trudeau’s Digital Policy 
Let Competition Be the Guide: Why the Government and CRTC Got It Right on Wholesale Fibre Broadband Access 
Commentary: Ensuring the Sovereignty and Security of Canadian Health Data 
The Law Bytes Podcast Law Society of Ontario CPD Professionalism Pack 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 242: Sukesh Kamra on Law Firm Adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Innovative Technologies
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.