Post Tagged with: "fair dealing"

Fair Access: Striking the Right Balance on Education and Copyright

Academic Matters, a semi-annual publication that explores issues related to higher education, has just published a pair of essays on education, fair dealing, copyright, and collective licensing. Roanie Levy, the Executive Director of Access Copyright, wrote an essay in support of the role of her copyright collective. I wrote the other essay, arguing that emerging forms of access for copyrighted works lessens the value of the Access Copyright licence.

The full piece – Fair Access: Striking the Right Balance on Education and Copyright – can be found here. I conclude that:

any [copyright law] review must account for the millions being paid by educational institutions for access and the modest interpretations of fair dealing law in Canada, which have resulted in copying guidelines that are still more restrictive than those found in some other countries. Indeed, a fair review of the current system reveals that the problem facing Access Copyright is not that copies are not valued, but rather that in light of new forms of access and the evolution of the law, its licence is no longer valuable.

January 22, 2016 — 2 comments — News

harper_mulcair_trudeau_may by Renegade98 (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/yWvygM

CBC Shoots Itself in the Foot With Election Debate Coverage

Hubert Lacroix, the president of the CBC, recently placed the future of the Canada’s national public broadcaster on the electoral map with comments aimed sparking a renewed debate on future funding models. Lacroix disputed claims that low ratings are to blame for the CBC’s financial struggles, instead pointing to the need to consider alternative fee schemes, including new levies on Internet providers or supplementary charges on television purchases.

While disagreement over CBC funding is as old as the broadcaster itself, the more uncomfortable discussion for the CBC is its coverage of the current election campaign – particularly its approach to national debates and political party advertising – which raises troubling questions about its relevance in the current media environment.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) suggests that most would agree that the CBC features an excellent group of reporters and boasts insightful analysts for its panel discussions. However, rather than working to make itself an invaluable resource for the election, the CBC has been unnecessarily restrictive in its broadcasting choices and in the use of its content.

October 7, 2015 — 8 comments — Columns

Youtube by Esther Vargas (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/g8Y9qs

How a Dancing Baby Struck a Blow for Balanced Copyright Law

In February 2007, Stephanie Lenz, a California mother of a pair of young toddlers, shot a short video of her children dancing in the family kitchen with the Prince song “Let’s Go Crazy” playing in the background. Lenz proceeded to upload the 29 second video to YouTube so that friends and family could see it.

Thousands of hours of user-generated video are posted online every day and there was nothing particularly remarkable about the dancing baby video. What set it apart, however, was that several months later Universal Music Group, Prince’s music label, sent a takedown notice to YouTube claiming that it infringed its copyright.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that similar takedown notices are sent to Internet intermediaries such as Google every hour. Yet this particular takedown demand seemed so at odds with the law (few experts believe it infringes copyright) that it sparked an eight year court battle in the United States and served as the inspiration for a 2012 Canadian copyright reform that protects users and websites that create and host non-commercial user-generated content.

September 22, 2015 — 2 comments — Columns

CBC Radio Canada - Vancouver by Tyler Ingram (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/7NujTF

CBC Seeks Takedown of Conservative Ad, Claims “No One” Can Re-Use Its News Clips Without Permission

Last week, the Conservative party posted an offensive advertisement on YouTube and Facebook titled Justin Trudeau on ISIS. The ad starts with ISIS music and images of prisoners about be drowned or beheaded before running short edited clips from a 13 minute interview with Trudeau and the CBC’s Terry Milewski. The advertisement has rightly generated a backlash with questions about whether it violates Bill C-51’s prohibitions on terrorist propaganda. Conservative Party campaign spokesman Kory Teneycke argues that it is little different than newscasts involving ISIS, but watching the combination of music and imagery, it clearly goes well beyond conventional news reporting on ISIS. Indeed, even if it fall short of violating Bill C-51, the ad is in terrible taste, treating images of victims as mere props for political gain.

Beyond the C-51 issue, the CBC waded into the issue late on Friday, as Jennifer McGuire, the CBC News Editor-in-Chief, posted a blog indicating that the broadcaster has asked YouTube and Facebook to take down the ad. The ostensible reason? Copyright. The CBC has again raised the issue of re-use of news coverage in political advertising, claiming that it is determined to limit re-use since “our integrity as providers of serious, independent coverage of political parties and governments rests on this.” In light of this position, the CBC says its guiding principle is:

No one – no individual candidate or political party, and no government, corporation or NGO – may re-use our creative and copyrighted property without our permission. This includes our brands, our talent and our content.

June 29, 2015 — 48 comments — News

Assignments of copyrights photostat copies by mollyali (CC BY-NC 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/5JbsPE

Why The Copyright Board Decision Affirms Canadian Education’s Approach to Fair Dealing

The Copyright Board of Canada delivered a devastating defeat to Access Copyright on Friday, releasing its decision on a tariff for copying by employees of provincial governments. Yesterday’s post provided a detailed review of the decision, including the Board’s findings on the limits of Access Copyright’s repertoire, the scope of insubstantial copying, and the proper interpretation of fair dealing.

The decision focused on copying within provincial and territorial governments, but much of the analysis can be easily applied within an education context. Indeed, since the Supreme Court of Canada 2012 copyright decisions, there has been a very public battle over the validity of fair dealing guidelines that have been widely adopted by the Canadian education community. I’ve written several posts on the education consensus (here and here) and there are no shortage of the fair dealing guidelines readily available online.

May 26, 2015 — 2 comments — News