Post Tagged with: "copyright"

Government Launches Consultation on Rules for ISP Notice-and-Notice System Amid Shift in Priorities

Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage launched a consultation yesterday on the rules associated with the Internet service provider notice-and-notice system that was established in Bill C-11, the copyright reform bill enacted in June 2012. Responses to the consultation are due by November 8, 2013. Most of the bill took effect in November 2012, but the government delayed implementation of the ISP rules, with expectation of a consultation and regulations to follow. It has taken nearly a full year, but the consultation was sent to undisclosed stakeholders with the promise to bring the notice-and-notice system into effect “in the near future.”

The notice-and-notice system allows copyright owners to send infringement notices to ISPs, who will be legally required to forward the notification to their subscribers. If an ISP fails to forward the notifications, it must explain why or face the prospect of damages that run as high as $10,000. ISPs must also retain information on the subscriber for six months (or 12 months if court proceedings are launched). Copyright owners may also send notifications to search engines, who must remove content that has been removed from the original source within 30 days. The notices must meet a prescribed form that includes details on the sender, the copyright works and the alleged infringement.

Despite some expectation that the consultation would place several issues on the table – form issues for notices, data retention, and costs for notices among them – the language used in the consultation letter suggests that the government is likely to simply bring the rules as articulated in the law into effect with no further regulations at all. It states:

October 10, 2013 — 42 comments — News

How Canada Can Put Digital Consumers First

Reports over the past week have indicated that the government plans to unveil a “consumer first” agenda for its upcoming Speech from the Throne. The speech, which will set out the federal legislative and policy agenda for the next two years, is widely viewed as the unofficial start of the 2015 election campaign.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes there is little doubt that the battle over wireless pricing, which hit a fever pitch over the summer in a very public fight between Industry Minister James Moore and the incumbent telecom companies, will figure prominently in any consumer agenda. The government is convinced that it has a winner on its hands – consumer frustration with Canada’s high wireless prices suggests that they’re right – and will continue to emphasize policies geared toward increasing competition.

Yet a consumer first agenda should involve more than just taking on the telcos on spectrum (or the airlines over their pricing practices). A digital consumer first agenda should prioritize several other issues that have similar potential to strike a chord with Canadians across the country. At the heart of those digital issues are two ongoing consumer concerns: pricing and protections.

September 25, 2013 — 11 comments — Columns

UBC Sets the Record Straight on University Spending on Copyright Materials

UBC President Stephen Toope has written an important letter responding to criticism from the Writers’ Union of Canada over his university’s reliance on fair dealing. Consistent with many universities across the country, UBC has moved away from the Access Copyright licence, focusing instead on a combination of fair dealing, open access, and site licences. The Toope letter notes how much the university community still pays for copyright materials and how little course pack sales are in relationship to overall spending:

UBC pays in the neighbourhood of $25 million to publishers and authors every year. In fiscal 2011/12, UBC spent approximately $2 million on book acquisitions, $2 million on print serials, and $10 million on digitally licensed subscriptions for students and faculty to access through its library system. UBC also sold approximately $14 million of books directly to students and faculty (for which UBC paid publishers about $10 million). In the same period, total course pack sales were about $1 million, less than 4% of the total spent on learning materials. Responsive to the needs of today’s students, UBC’s faculty members are increasingly utilizing online modes of content delivery, which means that course pack production volumes will form an even smaller percentage over time.

September 16, 2013 — Comments are Disabled — News

Decoding the Trans-Pacific Partnership: The Free Speech Implications

Earlier this week, I joined Jesse Brown for an online discussion on the Trans Pacific Partnership. The event, which was hosted by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, focused on the free speech implications from the deal, particularly in light of the copyright and privacy provisions. Moreover, we spent some time […]

September 13, 2013 — 1 comment — News

Canadian Universities Navigate Learning Curve for New Copyright Rules

As students and faculty prepare to head back to campus this week, many will be greeted by new copyright guidelines that clarify how materials may be used without the need for further permission or licensing fees. Just over a year after the Supreme Court of Canada released five landmark copyright decisions in a single day and the Canadian government passed copyright reform legislation over a decade in the making, the education community has begun to fully integrate the new copyright landscape into campus policies.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the new rules are significant since they grant teachers and students far more flexibility to use portions of materials without the need for copyright collective licences. The changes come as a result of the expansion of fair dealing, the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. fair use rules. The government expanded the scope of fair dealing to explicitly include education as a recognized purpose in 2012, while the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized the importance of a broad, liberal interpretation to fair dealing in order to ensure an appropriate balance in copyright law.

With those developments in hand, Canadian educational institutions crafted a general fair dealing policy last year confirming that educators can rely on fair dealing to use up to ten percent of a copyright-protected work (or a single article, a chapter from a book, a newspaper article, or a poem or photograph taken from a larger collection) without the need for a licence provided they meet a six-factor test.

September 4, 2013 — 1 comment — Columns