Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP

Copyright

Pulling a Fast One?: Who Is Really Hurt By C-32’s Missing Fair Dealing Circumvention Exception

For the past two Bill C-32 committee meetings, Conservative MP Ed Fast, a new member of the committee, has emerged as an important questioner. Fast has focused on the digital lock rules with several exchanges that defend the government’s approach. While dozens of groups (including education, consumer groups, libraries, archivists, retailers, and technology companies) have called for a link between circumvention and copyright infringement, Fast believes that opening that door would effectively eliminate the use of digital locks.

For example, yesterday he asked the Canadian Federation of Students how it could justify “eliminating digital locks altogether by allowing circumvention for fair dealing purposes?” Last week, he had a similar exchange with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, stating “my concern is if you go that extra step and allow circumvention for fair dealing, you’ve now made it so much more easy to actually allow the cheaters to undermine the system, where digital locks become absolutely meaningless.”

Fast has clearly given some thought to the digital lock issue, but he is wrong that linking circumvention to actual copyright infringement would render digital locks irrelevant.

February 16, 2011 — 23 comments — News

Leaving Millions on the Table: Pandora and Canadian Music

Pandora, the popular U.S. online music service filed for an initial public offering last week, provided new insight into hugely popular company that spends millions of dollars in copyright royalties. Pandora users listened to a billion hours of music in the last three months of 2010. Given U.S. laws, the […]

February 15, 2011 — 9 comments — News

Weak Copyright Laws? Recording Industry Files Massive Lawsuit Against isoHunt

As the debate over Canada’s copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32,continues to rage before a legislative committee, one of the most frequently heard claims is that tough reforms are needed to counter Canada’s reputation as a “piracy haven”. The presence of several well-known BitTorrent sites, most notably B.C.-based isoHunt, is cited as evidence for Canada’s supposedly lax laws that the industry says leaves it powerless.

When the bill was first introduced last June, the Canadian Recording Industry Association stated that “stronger rules are also needed to rein in Canadian-based peer-to-peer websites, which, according to IFPI,have become ‘a major source of the world’s piracy problem’.”

Politicians have taken note of the concerns. Industry Minister Tony Clement said the new bill will target “wealth destroyers” and Liberal MP Dan McTeague has lamented that “the very existence of an isoHunt in Canada is problematic and is very much the result of what appears to be a legislative holiday for companies and other BitTorrent sites.”

While the notion of a “legislative holiday” appears to be the impetus for some of the provisions on Bill C-32, my weekly technology law column (homepage version, Toronto Star version) notes that what is left unsaid – and thus far unreported – is that 26 of the world’s largest recording companies launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against isoHunt using existing Canadian copyright law just three weeks before the introduction of the bill [PDF of May 2010 claim, PDF of August 2010 amended claim].

February 14, 2011 — 29 comments — Columns

Weak Copyright Laws? Recording Industry Files Massive Lawsuit Against isoHunt

Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 13, 2011 as Is the Best Copyright Law the Old One? As the debate over Canada’s copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32, continues to rage before a legislative committee, one of the most frequently heard claims is that tough reforms are needed to counter […]

February 14, 2011 — Comments are Disabled — Columns Archive

Canadian Council of Archives on C-32: Digital Lock Rules Disastrous For Long-Term Access

The Canadian Council of Archives, a national non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing and sustaining the nationwide efforts of over 800 archives across Canada, has submitted a brief to the C-32 legislative committee and requested an opportunity to appear. While the CCA brief (~~not yet online~~) touches on several issues, including photographs and orphan works, its comments on the digital lock rules are particularly noteworthy:

Bill C-32 prohibits the circumvention of TPMs for legal purposes such as preservation activities used by archivists to protect the documentary heritage of Canada. This is completely unacceptable and is a matter of very grave concern to the Canadian archives community in the digital environment where obsolescence is both rapid and disastrous for long-term access. The CCA recommends that Bill C-32 be amended to provide that circumvention of TPMs is prohibited only when the circumvention is for the purpose of infringing copyright and that circumvention tools and services should be available for non-infringing uses.

February 10, 2011 — 10 comments — News