Search Results for "c-11" : 405

The Economist on Canadian Copyright Law

The Economist focuses on new copyright rules for the digital age, rightly pointing to Bill C-11 as “setting a new standard of permissiveness” (though it neglects to mention the restrictive digital lock rules).

September 4, 2012 — 2 comments — News

The Supreme Court of Canada Speaks: How To Assess Fair Dealing for Education

With the start of the school year less than two weeks away, the Canadian education community is increasingly thinking about copyright and the implications of Bill C-11 and the Supreme Court of Canada’s five copyright decisions. While Access Copyright argues that little has changed (in recent correspondence to the Copyright Board it even objected to a six-month delay in formulating a school survey on copying practices to fully account for Bill C-11 and the decisions), most recognize that the law has undergone a dramatic change that confirms significant flexibilities for educational uses.

I’ve posted several pieces on these issues (fair use in Canada, technological neutrality, impact on Access Copyright), but given the ongoing efforts to mislead and downplay the implications of the decisions, this long post pulls together the Supreme Court’s own language on how to assess fair dealing. The quotes come directly from the three major fair dealing decisions: CCH Canadian, Access Copyright, and SOCAN v. Bell Canada.

Note that this post is limited to the Court’s decisions and does not focus on the changes in Bill C-11. The legislative reforms provide additional support for education as they include the expansion of fair dealing to include education as a purposes category, a cap of $5000 on statutory damages for all non-commercial infringement, a non-commercial user generated content provision, an education exception for publicly available on the Internet, a new exception for public performances in schools, and a technology-neutral approach for the reproduction of materials for display purposes that may apply both offline and online.

August 22, 2012 — 5 comments — News

Why the End of Access Copyright K-12 Licensing for Is Not The End of Payment for Educational Copying

The reaction to last month’s Supreme Court of Canada copyright decisions with Access Copyright continues to play out with its supporters seeking to downplay the likely impact. I’ve already written several posts on the decision, including one explaining why the decision eviscerates Access Copyright’s business model. The short version of that post is that the Court rejected each Access Copyright key fair dealing arguments, in the process greatly expanding fair dealing in the education context such that the Access Copyright licence – which typically only covers 10 percent of a work – will rarely add value beyond what is permitted under fair dealing.

In light of the decisions and recent copyright law reforms, K-12 schools are likely to conclude that they do not need an Access Copyright licence. While the collective and its supporters will react by claiming that this will greatly harm Canadian publishers and authors, the reality is that schools have permission to reproduce the overwhelming majority of materials without Access Copyright or fair dealing.

Access Copyright has argued that the case only focused on 7% of copies, but the truth is that it involved an even smaller amount. The 7% figure stems from the copies for which Access Copyright seeks payment. In fact, the Access Copyright sponsored study that lies at the heart of the K-12 case found that schools already had permission to reproduce 88% of all books, periodicals, and newspapers without even conducting a copyright analysis or turning to the Access Copyright licence.

August 16, 2012 — 10 comments — News

How the Supreme Court of Canada Doubled Down on Users’ Rights in Copyright

I’ve posted several pieces on the recent Supreme Court of Canada copyright decisions, including an immediate overview, a piece on why Canada has shifted to fair use, an analysis of the inclusion of a technological neutrality principle, a discussion on the implication for Access Copyright, and a high level look at the key issues. This final post in the series tries to provide a broader context for what just occurred as the decisions mark the culmination of a ten year transformation of copyright at Canada’s highest court. Over the years, many have expressed doubts about this transformation, yet these five cases should put to rest the debate over whether a balanced analysis of the Copyright Act that prioritizes both creator and user rights has been entrenched in Canadian copyright law.

The shift began in 2002 with the Theberge decision, in which Justice Binnie for the majority discussed the copyright balance:

July 23, 2012 — 6 comments — News

Supreme Court Shakes the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law

I have posted several pieces on the recent Supreme Court of Canada copyright decisions (an immediate overview, a piece on why Canada has shifted to fair use, an analysis of the inclusion of a technological neutrality principle, and a discussion on the implication for Access Copyright). My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) also focused on the decision. It noted that copyright cases only reach the Supreme Court of Canada once every few years, ensuring that each case is carefully parsed and analyzed. Last week, the court issued rulings on five copyright cases in a single day, an unprecedented tally that will keep copyright experts busy for many months to come.

While the initial coverage unsurprisingly focused on the specific outcomes for the litigants, including wins for Apple (no fees for song previews on services such as iTunes), the entertainment software industry (no additional payment for music included in downloaded video games), and the education community (copying materials for instructional purposes may qualify as fair dealing), the bigger story are three broad principles that lie at the heart of the court’s decisions.

July 20, 2012 — 19 comments — Columns