Post Tagged with: "fair dealing"

“Legislative Guidance” on Fair Dealing: The Plan to Reverse CCH?

My post this week on several writers groups objections to Bill C-32 has generated considerable discussion, with some taking me to task for focusing on their letter’s warning of “unintended consequences,””years of costly litigation,” and “serious damage to the cultural sector.” Instead, they argue that I should have focused on the call for additional “legislative guidance” on the fair dealing reforms. After all, who could be against greater clarity in the law?

In the discussion that has followed, I believe that it has become increasingly clear that the “legislative guidance” is not really about the fair dealing reforms found in C-32, but rather fair dealing more generally. Unfortunately, the writers’ letter only speaks of their concerns and does not provide any specific policy or legislative reform recommendations that would clarify their intentions. However, with the government having opened up the fair dealing provision, those groups may see an opportunity to reverse the Supreme Court of Canada’s CCH decision that characterized fair dealing as a user right and established guidelines for its interpretation.

Why do I arrive at this conclusion?

August 27, 2010 — 141 comments — News

Writers Groups Attack Fair Dealing Reform in Copyright Bill

Several writers groups have written to Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore to criticize elements of Bill C-32. The letter focuses on the fair dealing exception for education:

From our perspective the biggest weakness in the bill is the addition of the word â€˜education’ to the purposes of â€œfair dealingâ€ without clear legislative guidance on how this amended provision of the Copyright Act will work in conjunction with other, more specific exceptions for education. We think that this new fair dealing provision will result in serious damage to the cultural sector and to Canada’s embryonic knowledge economy and, together with other new exceptions, negatively affect Canada’s professional writers.

The letter adds “we see that without further clarification of some provisions there will be unintended consequences and years of costly litigation.”

It is important to emphasize again that this is fear mongering that is simply inaccurate.

August 24, 2010 — 68 comments — News

SOCAN Seeks Leave to Appeal Fair Dealing Decision

SOCAN has filed a motion for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in the case involving fair dealing and online music previews. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the Copyright Board’s ruling that such previews could be viewed as consumer research and qualify for fair dealing consideration.

August 16, 2010 — 1 comment — News

Meera Nair on Access Copyright and Fair Dealing

“The fact that the material is copyrighted is not what entitles it to payment. Fair dealing should be given consideration before the cheques are written.” Read the full post.

August 16, 2010 — 1 comment — News

Should Canadian Universities Walk Away From Access Copyright?

The Access Copyright tariff proposal that calls for a 1300% increase in fees to $45 per full-time student has generated some interesting discussion. I noted in one of my responses that my courses only use openly accessible materials – court cases, statutes, government reports, and open access licenced articles. This comes without any loss in the quality of materials and without the need for further payment or permissions. I don’t think this is particuarly unusual for law, which relies heavily on these kinds of materials in addition to textbooks purchased by students and works in databases that are separately licenced. The amount of additional copying in that environment that falls outside private study or research such that it requires a licence is tiny to non-existent. Indeed, the inclusion of education as a fair dealing category would not change a great deal for thousands of Canadian law students.

While fairness dictates that Canadian education must object to the Access Copyright tariff proposal to ensure that students are not asked to pay for uses that the law says do not require compensation, it may be time for the post-secondary education community to ask whether it should walk away from Access Copyright altogether. Note that I am not saying that creators should go uncompensated and that education should get a free ride. I repeat that it is fair dealing, not free dealing.

August 11, 2010 — 64 comments — News