The Copyright Board of Canada has just issued the first part of its decision in the long-running (since 1996) Tariff 22 case. The Board is prepared to establish a tariff for the communication of musical works over the Internet and while much of the decision is devoted to economic analysis, several key legal questions are addressed. Of greatest interest is its conclusion that offering music previews (ie. a portion of a song) constitutes fair dealing under Canadian copyright law as it can be characterized as copying for the purpose of research. This decision – which is right in my view – highlights the very broad nature of fair dealing following the Supreme Court of Canada's CCH decision.
The Board rightly notes that listening to an excerpt of a work is consumer research into whether they might like to purchase the song, concluding that:
