For much of the past two decades, copyright groups have steadfastly sought to deny what the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly endorsed, namely that the purpose of Canadian copyright law is to serve the public interest by balancing users’ and authors’ rights. Last week provided the latest episode in the ongoing series as the Court delivered yet another strong affirmation on the importance of copyright balance and the role of technological neutrality, confirming that “[c]opyright law does not exist solely for the benefit of authors.” The decision – SOCAN v. Entertainment Software Association – can read on at least four levels: (1) as a repudiation of SOCAN’s effort to establish a new, additional royalty for the “making available” of music; (2) as a confirmation of the importance of technological neutrality and copyright balance; (3) as an example of the flexibility associated with implementing the WIPO Internet treaties, and (4) as the undeniable entrenchment of Canadian copyright jurisprudence that now features deeply layered precedents on users’ rights.
Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP
Copyright
Why The Government’s “Policy Intentions” For Bill C-11 Don’t Trump the Actual Text
Parliament may be on a summer recess, but the debate over Bill C-11, which is now in the Senate, continues. Yesterday, I engaged in a Twitter debate with Matthew Gray, an official in the office of Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez that ultimately focused on the relative importance of the government’s “policy intention” vs. the actual text of the bill. While officials and Minister Rodriguez regularly point to what they intend the bill to do, experts note that the text does not reflect those intentions.
Bill C-11 Now a Trade Issue: U.S. Warns Canada About Online Streaming Act Concerns
Bill C-11, the government’s online streaming legislation, has caught the attention of the U.S. government, which raised it as a concern during a recent meeting between U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Canadian Minister of International Trade Mary Ng. The issue is cited in the U.S. readout of the meeting, though the Canadian readout of the same meeting notably excludes any reference to the issue. The readout specifically states that “Ambassador Tai expressed concern about Canada’s proposed digital service tax and pending legislation in the Canadian Parliament that could impact digital streaming services.” The reference to concerns with a digital services tax has been raised before, but the inclusion of Bill C-11 is new. The concerns may reflect Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s decision to regulate user generated content, an approach not found in any other country in the world.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 134: Monica Auer on CRTC Governance, Content Regulation and the Radio-Canada Decision
Over the past couple of weeks, there has been mounting outrage over a CRTC decision involving Radio-Canada and a broadcast segment from 2020 in which the N-word was used multiple times as part of a discussion of a book that contains the word in its title. That decision has sparked cries of censorship and concerns about the CRTC. Given that Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and the government want to give the Commission even more power over Internet content as part of Bill C-11, the implications extend beyond this case. Monica Auer, the executive director of the Forum for Research and Policy in Communications, joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the latest developments, the broader concerns with CRTC governance, and whether assurances regarding Internet speech safeguards stand up to careful scrutiny.
Unequal Speech: How to Explain the Contradictory Criticism of the CRTC Radio-Canada Decision and Support for Bill C-11
The controversy over the CRTC’s Radio-Canada decision involving its repeated use of the N-word has continued to grow with Quebec-based politicians – including the governing CAQ and the Liberal Party of Quebec – warning of censorship and calling on Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to reverse the CRTC decision. The outpouring has left me struggling to reconcile the seeming hypocrisy of politicians who warn about the dangers of CRTC speech regulation even as they have been the most ardent supporters of Bill C-11, eager to pass resolutions that call on the federal government to enact legislation empowering the CRTC to regulate user content.
My initial take in a tweet was that this reflects a demand to protect their own speech even as there is a willingness to sacrifice the speech of others in return for a Youtube payoff. On reflection, however, I think there is more at play. Before explaining, it bears mentioning that months of assurances during the Bill C-11 hearings that the CRTC does not engage in speech regulation were patently false.
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 232: What Will Canadian Digital Policy Look Like Under the New Liberal Carney Government? 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 231: Sara Bannerman on How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 230: Aengus Bridgman on the 2025 Federal Election, Social Media Platforms, and Misinformation 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 229: My Digital Access Day Keynote – Assessing the Canadian Digital Policy Record 
Queen’s University Trustees Reject Divestment Efforts Emphasizing the Importance of Institutional Neutrality
