Post Tagged with: "c-11"

TPP’s Other Copyright Term Extension: Protection of Sound Recordings Would Nearly Double in Duration

Europe has been embroiled in a controversy over the copyright term of sound recordings for the past few years. While the law provided protection for a 50 year term, major record labels argued for an extended term to generate more profits from older recordings. Proposals to extend the term in the UK and Europe were widely panned as independent studies found that benefiting a few record labels would come at an enormous public cost (see here or here). For example, the UK Gowers Review of Intellectual Property concluded:

Economic evidence indicates that the length of protection for copyright works already far exceeds the incentives required to invest in new works. Boldrin and Levine estimate that the optimal length of copyright is at most seven years. Posner and Landes, eminent legal economists in the field, argue that the extra incentives to create as a result of term extension are likely to be very small beyond a term of 25 years. Furthermore, it is not clear that extending term from 50 years to 70 or 95 years would remedy the unequal treatment of performers and producers from composers, who benefit from life plus 70 years protection. This is because it is not clear that extension of term would benefit musicians and performers very much in practice. The CIPIL report that the Review commissioned states that: â€œmost people seem to assume that any extended term would go to record companies rather than performers: either because the record company already owns the copyright or because the performer will, as a standard term of a recording agreement, have purported to assign any extended term that might be created to the copyright holderâ€.

Despite the evidence, the term of sound recordings was extended in the UK last year. Canada has thus far been spared a lengthy debate over the issue since a similar extension clearly holds little benefit to Canadians with the overwhelming majority of incremental revenues going to U.S. record labels.

January 10, 2012 — 3 comments — News

Supreme Court Securities Act Constitutionality Ruling Throws Digital Laws into Doubt

The Supreme Court of Canada this morning ruled that the federal government’s plan to create a single securities regulator is unconstitutional since it stretches the federal trade and commerce clause too far into provincial jurisdiction. The ruling is a wake-up call on the limits of federal powers, even where many […]

December 22, 2011 — 26 comments — News

Canadian Library Association on C-11

The Canadian Library Association has released a new position paper on Bill C-11. The CLA directs much of its concern to the digital lock rules: The prohibitions on the circumvention of digital locks in Bill Câ€11 exceed Canada’s obligations under WIPO copyright treaties. Canada agreed to distinctive wording and flexibilities […]

December 21, 2011 — 4 comments — News

The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 52: Ontario Council of University Libraries

With Parliament set to break for the holidays later today, the daily digital lock dissenter will break as well. I’ll resume the series once Parliament returns in late January.

The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) represents the 21 public university libraries in Ontario, serving a community of about 400,000 full time students and professors. OCUL provided a submission to the 2009 national copyright consultation that stated the following about digital locks:

Digital locks can prevent users from interacting with copyright materials in ways that are perfectly legal in themselves. Copyright law must not make it illegal to circumvent a digital lock in order to use a copyrighted item for purposes that do not infringe copyright. To satisfy WIPO treaty obligations, it is sufficient that copyright law afford protection to digital locks only to penalize the breaking of digital locks for infringing purposes.

December 15, 2011 — 4 comments — News

The False Link Between C-11’s Digital Lock Rules and Video Game Industry Jobs

Debate resumed on Monday on the copyright bill with the opposition parties citing correspondence from Canadian after Canadian concerned with the digital lock rules found in Bill C-11. Thousands of Canadians have called on the government to adopt compromise legislation that provides legal protection for digital locks but ensures that the copyright balance is retained by linking circumvention to copyright infringement. As I have chronicled in more than 50 daily digital lock postings, this view is shared by business groups, consumer organizations, cultural groups (including the leading performers and publisher associations), education and library representatives, as well as Canada’s leading consumer organization. There is no serious debate about where the overwhelming majority of Canadians that have spoken out on the bill stand.

The task of defending the bill has lately fallen to Paul Calandra, the Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage. As I posted last month, Calandra has focused on the claim that there is no jurisdiction “where digital locks have been used and the actual availability of content has been reduced.” The argument is a complete red herring as no one has argued C-11 will reduce the availability of content but rather that it will eliminate many of the rights consumers obtain when they purchase that content.

Calandra has now also turned to the video game industry as a major source of support. Given the fact that writers, performers, publishers, musicians, documentary film makers, and artists have all called for greater balance on digital locks, the government has been left with fewer and fewer creative industries that support its position. On Monday, Calandra repeatedly referenced the video game industry and the prospect of lost jobs as a reason to support restrictive digital lock rules. For example:

I wonder if the member and her party opposite are talking about putting an end to the video gaming industry in this country with weak TPM measures.

Later, Calandara asked an MP:

Could he explain to the House how, in the absence of effective technical protection measures, that industry could continue to flourish in the province of Quebec?

Calandra regularly referenced the 14,000 jobs in the industry and suggested that they would be put at risk with “weak” TPM measures. Given the focus, it is important to examine the evidence that supports claims that jobs are at risk.

December 14, 2011 — 20 comments — News