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61 Reforms to C-61, Day 56: Interlibrary Digital Loans Must Self-Destruct In Five Days

Bill C-61's library provisions are not confined to e-reserves.  The bill adds a new Section 30.2(5.01) to the Copyright Act that is designed to facilitate digital distribution of materials for interlibrary loans.  The section states:

A library, archive or museum, or a person acting under the authority of one, may, under subsection (5), make a copy of printed matter in digital form and provide it to a person who has requested it through another library,
archive or museum if the providing library, archive or museum or person takes measures to prevent the person who has requested it from

(a) making any reproduction of the digital copy, including any paper copies, other than printing one copy of it;
(b) communicating the digital copy to any other person; and
(c) using the digital copy for more than five business days

While moving toward digital interlibrary loans has obvious advantages (speed and cost being at the top of the list), this provision once again forces libraries to implement DRM-based solutions.  The requirements that limit further copying and distribution go far beyond what is necessary (they are presumably a response to the unlikely scenario that only a single Canadian library will purchase the copy of a work and use digital distribution to cover the rest of the country).  Even worse is the requirement to destroy the digital copy within five days (this is actually a reduction from seven days in the Liberal's C-60).  There are no similar requirements for paper-based copies of works and it makes no sense to force libraries to install DRM protections on digital copies to create time-limited uses.

3 Comments

  1. NO MORE COPYRIGHT WOULD ROCK says:

    FREE MARKET
    are these libraries or a movie theatre?

    Since fraking when did all these rules about knowledge come into play .
    PERHAPS we should just scrap copyright al together and let the so called conservative market forces really drive the wheels.

    YAH lets have a real free market….

  2. It’s not that unlikely. Most libraries are what they call “resource sharing”. ILL is done in a way that makes DRM very simple, so this isn’t going to be a problem for them. In fact, some of them do it now with their licensed ILL and others are looking at it so that copies they sell aren’t then resold or distributed cutting them out of the loop.

  3. Mike
    How would this be an effective strategy anyhow? If the user is allowed to make *one* copy (what happens if the printer jams; does he have to request the material agian?)what is stopping him from scanning that paper copy to a pdf and sending it far and wide? It’s an extra step but really all this does is establish an inconvenience to legitimate use. It’s stupid.