The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is an alliance of 26 student associations and student unions from across Canada. Through this network of college, technical institute and university student governments, CASA represents and defends the interests of approximately 320,000 post-secondary students to the federal government.  CASA members are on Parliament Hill this week to lend their voice to issues of concern to students, including copyright reform. CASA’s comments to the Bill C-32 committee included the following on digital locks:

as is currently drafted, the educational fair dealing right is not enshrined as a true right, but a secondary right that can be overridden by a digital lock. Creating balance in the bill is important and digital locks have their role, but allowing them to override fair dealing undermines the very concept of fair dealing; if a work has a digital lock, a copyright holder can limit any use of it, and “fair dealing” means there can be no inherent limit if the purpose is just. This is more restrictive than the copyright regime in the United States, and goes beyond Canada’s obligations under international treaties. If we take fair dealing seriously, it needs to be a true right, and needs to trump a digital lock.

Previous Daily Digital Locks: Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) BC, Canadian Consumer Initiative, Retail Council of Canada, Canadian Council of Archives, Canadian Teachers’ Federation, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Documentary Organization of Canada, Canadian Library Association, Council of Ministers of Education Canada, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright, Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Canadian Historical Association, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Canadian Bookseller Association, Canadian Home and School Federation, Film Studies Association of Canada, Canadian Bar Association, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Appropriation Art, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives, Canadian Association of Law Libraries, Federation Etudiante Universitaire du Quebec, Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, Canadian Association of Media Education Associations, Association of Canadian Community Colleges, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, Association pour l’avancement des sciences et des techniques de la documentation (ASTED)