Post Tagged with: "fair dealing"

The Bill C-32 Debate Begins: Locks, Levies & Misinformation on Fair Dealing

Second reading of Bill C-32 kicked off yesterday with hours of discussion from MPs from all political parties. Six months after the bill was first introduced, the debate offered the first opportunity to get a sense of where the various parties stand and which issues will be most contentious when the committee tasked with review the bill begins hearings within the next couple of weeks (coverage from PostMedia).

The issue at the top of the Liberal and NDP agenda is digital locks. Both parties (along with the Bloc) expressed concern with the digital lock approach in Bill C-32. The Liberals repeatedly emphasized the need for consumers to have the right to circumvent for format shifting, backup copies, and other consumer activities. This would require changes to both the consumer provisions and the general anti-circumvention provision, since both create barriers to these basic consumer activities. Given that the U.S. now allows circumvention of DVDs for some non-commercial purposes, this seems like a reasonable compromise. The NDP placed the spotlight on the impact of locks on education and teaching, describing the exceptions that require destruction of teaching materials 30 days after the end of the course as a digital book burning.

November 3, 2010 — 18 comments — News

Access Copyright to the Supreme Court: No Need for Greater Fair Dealing Certainty

With Bill C-32 heading for second reading tomorrow, the inclusion of education as a fair dealing category looms as one of the big issues. Groups such as Access Copyright oppose the reform and argue that legislative guidance on the scope of fair dealing is needed. It turns out, however, that Access Copyright is prepared to argue precisely the opposite position when it suits. This past summer, the copyright collective won a major fair dealing case at the Federal Court of Appeal, leading some education groups to seek leave to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. Access Copyright is opposed to the leave application and its memorandum to the court says the current six part fair dealing test is good enough. In particular, it argues:

November 1, 2010 — 18 comments — News

Against Bill C-32: Creator Groups Stake Out Strong Anti-Copyright Bill Position

Update 11/1: I have received a request to remove the link to the ACTRA document on the grounds that it was posted prematurely. I have been advised that there is not yet consensus among all groups listed in the document on the various C-32 issues.

When Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore told an IP conference last June that only two groups of radical extremists were opposed to Bill C-32, most assumed that he had user groups in mind. Yet as various groups begin to publicly make their positions known, few have been as critical as a creator coalition that includes ACTRA, a writers’ coalition, visual arts coalition, and Quebec artists groups. In a backgrounder on the bill, those groups oppose nearly all the major reform elements of Bill C-32, with the notable exception of digital locks (on which they remain silent).

Just how broad is the opposition? The position paper stakes out the following positions:

October 28, 2010 — 78 comments — News

Locking Out Lawful Users

Osgoode Hall Law School professor Carys Craig has a great post at the IP Osgoode site on her article in From â€œRadical Extremismâ€ to â€œBalanced Copyrightâ€: Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, the copyright book from Irwin Law that officially launches tomorrow. Craig’s article focuses on two key aspects of Bill C-32: the fair dealing reforms and the impact of the digital lock provisions. On fair dealing, Craig brings much-needed perspective to the fair dealing reform, which has been the target of an ongoing fear mongering campaign that implausibly and inaccurately claims that it will erode Canadian culture. Rather, Craig notes:

Educational, parodic and other transformative uses have long been recognized as potential fair uses in the United States. Indeed, the need to expressly include these specific exceptions in Canada speaks more to the shortcomings of the Canadian approach to fair dealing (in contrast to US fair use) than it does to the pursuit of a genuine balance between owners and users in the copyright reform process.

Craig reserves her harshest criticism for C-32’s digital lock provisions, which she describes as “unduly expansive,” concluding:

October 13, 2010 — 30 comments — News

CMEC Seeks Leave to Appeal Fair Dealing Decision

The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada has announced that is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada this summer’s Federal Court of Appeal decision involving fair dealing in education. I discussed the decision here.

September 29, 2010 — 1 comment — News