Articles by: Michael Geist

Vic Toews’ Lawful Access Deception

Appeared in the Toronto Star on December 11, 2011 as Canada’s need for the Tories’ snooping law is not proven Early next year the government will introduce lawful access legislation featuring new information disclosure requirements for Internet providers, the installation of mandated surveillance technologies, and creation of new police powers. […]

December 12, 2011 — Comments are Disabled — Columns Archive

Canada – US Beyond the Border Deal: IP Enforcement Doesn’t Make the Cut

Canada and the U.S. unveiled a new perimeter agreement on Wednesday that includes new border measures and regulatory cooperation initiatives. While the agreement raises important privacy concerns with respect to information sharing and paves the way for lawful access with a Canadian commitment to accede to the Council of Europe […]

December 9, 2011 — 4 comments — News

The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 48: Canadian Urban Library Council

The Canadian Urban Library Council members collectively serve more than 7.5 million active users at 522 locations. In 2008, members loaned 171,000,000 items and expended $86 million on collections including $8 million on digital resources. The CULC provided a submission to the 2009 national copyright consultation and said the following about digital locks:

Legislation must ensure that individuals and the not-for-profit library, archive, museum, and education institutions which serve them can circumvent TPMs for non-infringing purposes. Increasingly content providers are recognizing that TPMs which restrict using legally acquired content on different devices are not acceptable to consumers. TPMs which restrict legal copying or format shifting should not be protected in legislation. Canada’s public libraries place a high priority on service to multicultural communities including recent immigrants. Of necessity this requires the provision of audio-visual collections which may have regional coding. TPM legislation as formulated in other countries and the last copyright legislation tabled in the House of Commons could be used to make illegal the ownership of DVD players which bypass regional coding. Such an outcome is especially unacceptable in a multicultural country such as Canada and certainly has the potential to impede public library service.

December 9, 2011 — Comments are Disabled — News

The Supreme Court Copyright Hearings, Day Two: The Fight to Rollback Fair Dealing

The Supreme Court of Canada held the second day of copyright hearings yesterday with Canadian education groups and Access Copyright squaring off over fair dealing from the perspective of copying materials in schools for classroom use. Much like the first day that involved some discussion that will be rendered largely moot by reforms found in Bill C-11, some of the debate in this case may also change once the bill becomes law. There was considerable focus on the extent to which the fair dealing categories of research and private study can include some element of classroom instruction. That discussion referenced the exclusion of a general education exception, which is not found in the current law but is included in Bill C-11.

As for this particular hearing, the education institutions offered a confused and confusing argument. The problems started from the opening question, with Justice Rothstein opening the door to considering whether short excerpts might be treated insubstantial copying without the need for fair dealing and the schools simply dismissing the possibility. It went downhill from there as the arguments veered between confusing numbers and a failure to address the basic question of why the school’s copying met the six-factor fair dealing test. Access Copyright faced some challenges on the question of whose purpose is relevant when considering fair dealing (it wanted the focus on the teacher, the schools on the student), but the court seems very unlikely to overturn this decision.

December 8, 2011 — 2 comments — News

The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 47: Queen’s University

The copyright views of Canadian universities are typically represented by the AUCC, but several universities have made their own views known. For example, Queen’s University provided its own submission to the 2009 national copyright consultation. It said the following about digital locks:

Protection of digital locks must not impede users’ rights.

Quoting from a book or a newspaper is established fair dealing, and it ought to follow that quoting from a digital file would constitute fair dealing too. If such fair dealing is prevented by digital locks, and those are given an extra level of legal protection, scholars and students will only be able to engage with an increasingly limited portion of the world around us. Courses will become removed from the cultural context of the times; critique and creativity will be stymied. Teachers, students, and researchers need to be permitted to show and recontextualize clips from digital media, or sequences of software code, just as they were in the analog age permitted to copy “fairly” for purposes of criticism, review, research, or private study. The Supreme Court stated in CCH v. LSUC (2004) that “the fair dealing exception isâ€¦ an integral part of the Copyright Actâ€¦ Any act falling within the fair dealing exception will not be an infringement of copyright. The fair dealing exception, like other exceptions in the Copyright Act, is a user’s right.” The prevention of fair dealing with digital locks would thus be not only a major threat to innovation and teaching, but a a major distortion of the Copyright Act as understood by our highest Court.

December 8, 2011 — 1 comment — News