Michael Geist

Several writers groups have written to Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore to criticize elements of Bill C-32.  The letter focuses on the fair dealing exception for education:

From our perspective the biggest weakness in the bill is the addition of the word ‘education’ to the purposes of “fair dealing” without clear legislative guidance on how this amended provision of the Copyright Act will work in conjunction with other, more specific exceptions for education. We think that this new fair dealing provision will result in serious damage to the cultural sector and to Canada’s embryonic knowledge economy and, together with other new exceptions, negatively affect Canada’s professional writers.

The letter adds “we see that without further clarification of some provisions there will be unintended consequences and years of costly litigation.”

It is important to emphasize again that this is fear mongering that is simply inaccurate. 

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