Michael Geist

IP Osgoode held an interesting one-day conference in Ottawa last week that brought together many European copyright experts for a discussion on what – if anything – Canada can learn from Europe on copyright. The event opened with a keynote address from Silke von Lewinski, a well-known supporter of the WIPO Internet treaties whose work is frequently cited by those arguing for DMCA-style implementation of digital lock rules.

Von Lewinski, who warned in her speech against NGOs and public interest groups active on copyright issues who she said were really fronts for telcos and ISPs, assured the audience that there were no problems with the digital lock rules in Europe with only one complaint in the many years since it was established (a positioned echoed by Mihaly Ficsor later in the day). It should be noted that other studies, such as this exhaustive one from the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam commissioned by the European Commission’s Internal Market Directorate General, come to a much different conclusion. It found numerous problems with situation in Europe, recommending:

To remedy the lack of legal certainty and harmonisation with respect to the legal protection of TPMs, and to align the European provisions with the EU’s international obligations under the WIPO Treaties, the EC legislator should consider clarifying the legal framework in four respects. First, the prohibition on acts of circumvention  should only find application in circumstances where the act of circumvention results in copyright infringement. 

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