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Ontario Public School Boards Preparing To Drop Access Copyright Next Year

The Ontario Public School Board Association last week advised school boards across the province that they should prepare to stop using the Access Copyright licence effective next year. The advisory indicates that the Counsel of Ministers of Education, Copyright, which represents education ministers across the country, has received a legal opinion that confirms that K-12 schools no longer require the Access Copyright licence since they can rely on fair dealing for the small percentage of copying in schools that is unlicensed or copied without permission. A 2005 study of copying in Canadian K-12 schools conducted for Access Copyright found that 88% of copying of copyright works already had the necessary permissions without the need for an additional licence. The Access Copyright portion covered as little as 6% of the total copying and given the recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions, the schools believe that this copying is covered by fair dealing.

The advisory to the school boards includes the following (the fair dealing guidelines, which are very similar to the fair dealing policy adopted by the ACCC, can be found here):

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October 15, 2012 1 comment News

Government Study Finds CETA Drug Patent Reforms Would Cost Canadians Billions

The Canadian Press reports that an internal study by Industry Canada and Health Canada estimates that EU patent demands as part of the Canada – EU Trade Agreement could increase Canadian health care costs by up to $2 billion per year. The drug patent issue is viewed as a key […]

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October 15, 2012 2 comments News

Gordon Ritchie on CETA and the TPP

Gordon Ritchie, one of the architects of the Canada – U.S. Free Trade Agreement, on CETA and the TPP: from what I have seen of the proposed deal with the European Community, it is not at all obvious what Canada stands to gain. The benefits are even less clear from […]

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October 15, 2012 1 comment News

TPP Negotiations Present Far More Questions Than Answers

Peter Clark posts an opinion piece at iPolitics that raises many questions with the Trans Pacific Partnership. Clark notes that “the TPP will not be worth much to Canada” given that we already have trade agreements with the U.S., Mexico, Chile and Peru.

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October 15, 2012 Comments are Disabled News

Are CRIA and the MPA-Canada Now Opposed to Canadian Content Rules?

This week, the government was formally included in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations with the next formal round scheduled for New Zealand in early December. I’ve written extensively about the copyright implications of the TPP as leaked versions of the intellectual property chapter and demands from U.S. copyright lobby groups point to a significant re-write of Bill C-11. Areas targeted for reform in Canada include ISP liability, statutory damages, and extending the term of copyright.

An additional issue has begun to attract increasing attention as the same lobby groups seeking copyright reforms have also put dismantling Canadian content regulations on the table. The IIPA, the lead lobby group for the movie, music, and software industries, told the U.S. government:

IIPA strongly believes that the TPP market access chapters must be comprehensive in scope, strictly avoiding any sectoral carve outs that preclude the application of free trade disciplines. We note that several market access barriers cited by USTR in its 2012 National Trade Estimate report on Canada involve, for example, content quota requirements for television, radio, cable television, direct-to-home broadcast services, specialty television, and satellite radio services. It should be possible to address such barriers to trade in the TPP, and thus augment consumers’ access to diverse content, while promoting local cultural expressions.

Many concerned with Canadian culture have reacted with alarm as the U.S. government has focused on potential changes to television and radio content requirements, classification systems for movies, and online video.

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October 12, 2012 16 comments News