Post Tagged with: "Copyright Canada"

The Canadian DMCA’s Talking Points

While some attendees were disappointed that Industry Minister Jim Prentice was not more responsive to the copyright questions posed at this weekend's open house, I found the comments very insightful since they provide a roadmap for how Prentice is likely to justify tomorrow's introduction of a Canadian DMCA.  I expect that the launch will include some well co-ordinated laudatory comments from groups like CRIA and the CMPDA, yet the Minister is likely to focus on four points to justify his "framework legislation":

1.   Canada Needs This Legislation To Meet Its International Treaty Obligations.  This is a reference to the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet Treaties that Canada signed in 1997 but has not yet implemented or ratified.  While this is a bit rich coming from a government that has ratified Kyoto but not done much of anything to meet its obligations, there are two points worth making in response.  First, signing a treaty is not the same as ratifying (just ask the U.S. which is one of only two countries in the world to have signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child but not ratified it) – Canada is not offside on its international obligations on copyright because it has yet to act on the WIPO Treaties. Second, there is great flexibility on how a country chooses to implement those treaties.  It is simply not enough to claim that Canada has no choice.  We do.  We can meet the treaty standards and still protect fair dealing, privacy, consumer, and education interests.  It is Prentice's choice not to do so.

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December 10, 2007 7 comments News

O’©anada

UserFriendly.org. Update: The Canadian DMCA theme continues. 

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December 10, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

Ten Questions for Industry Minister Prentice

Appeared in the Hill Times on December 10, 2007 as Ten Questions for Industry Minister Prentice In anticipation of the forthcoming copyright bill, the CBC Radio program Search Engine recently conducted an innovative experiment by asking its listeners to post questions about the bill for Industry Minister Jim Prentice.  What […]

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December 10, 2007 5 comments Columns Archive

Copyright’s 10K

As many readers of this blog will know, last Saturday night I started a Facebook group called Fair Copyright in Canada. I sent an invitation to 100 or so "Facebook friends" in the hope that some would join and that we could create a useful resource for discussion on the […]

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December 9, 2007 28 comments News

What Canada Can Learn From Israeli Copyright Reform

The University of Toronto's Ariel Katz has a brilliant posting on the recent Israeli copyright reform process which illustrates how copyright and innovation can be done right.

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December 9, 2007 Comments are Disabled News