As the Canadian education community continues to shift away from the Access Copyright licence, relying instead on a combination of site licenses for materials, open access, fair dealing, and individual transactional licences, U.S. publishers are now urging the U.S. government to pressure the Canadian government to take action. The IIPA, […]

Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP
Copyright
Interview on the Music Industry Going After Google
appeared on Rob Breakenridge’s Show to discuss the state of music industry. They have successfully demanded legislative reform, obtained millions in funding and now they are going after Google because they believe it provides easy access to illegal sources. Listen to or download the podcast here.
Here We Go Again: Canadian Recording Industry Calls on Government To Regulate the Internet
Graham Henderson, the head of the Music Canada (formerly the Canadian Recording Industry Association) wrote a blog post late last year lamenting musicians’ earnings, a situation he blames on the Internet allowing a few to “amass staggering, unprecedented wealth” while musicians toil for tiny incomes. Leaving aside the facts that the Canadian music industry experienced increased digital sales last year (while sales declined in the U.S.) and that the Ontario government is handing out tens of millions of tax dollars to the industry, Henderson now says the government needs to step in and regulate the Internet. According to Music Canada, government support must be complimented by:
judicious and reasonable regulation of the internet. The actions taken by courts in other jurisdictions have very reasonably required ISPs to block websites that are almost entirely dedicated to the theft of intellectual property.
In fact, Internet regulation and blocking websites are not the only music industry target. Last week, Music Canada appeared before the Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, where it cited Google as a problem:
Supreme Court of Canada Emphasizes Balance in Determining Copyright Scope of Protection
The Supreme Court of Canada issued another copyright decision this morning, ruling in favour of Claude Robinson in a longstanding copyright infringement battle over a children’s television series. Robinson was vindicated in the decision with an award of millions of dollars. The case is an important one for determining whether […]
Copyright Collectives Gone Mad: How the ERCC Spent Dollars to Earn Pennies
Howard Knopf points to an interesting Copyright Board of Canada decision that provides a instructive lesson in how copyright collectives fail. At issue is the Educational Rights Collective Canada, a collective formed in 1998 to collect royalties for educational copying of broadcast programs in classrooms. The ERCC, which includes the […]