Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 18, 2008 as Broad Consensus is Building on Copyright Front Under most circumstances, Telus and Rogers Communications fiercely compete in the marketplace. The same can be said for Google and Yahoo!, the world’s two leading rival Internet search companies. Yet last week these […]
Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP
Copyright
Independent Report Blasts Access Copyright Over Lack of Transparency
One year after it was completed by University of Toronto law professor Martin L. Friedland, the results on an independent study on Access Copyright and royalty distribution system has been released [the report was emailed to me; I have not seen an online version]. The report is a stunning indictment of the copyright collective, calling for dramatic change in governance, transparency, and royalty distribution practices. Friedland begins by noting:
I have undertaken a number of other public policy studies over the years, including such reasonably complex topics as pension reform, securities regulation, and national security, and have never encountered anything quite as complex as the Access Copyright distribution system. It is far from transparent. Very little is written down in a consolidated, cohesive, comprehensive, or comprehensible manner. There is no manual describing in detail how the distribution system operates.
The report continues by examining the history of Access Copyright, comparing it to other collectives, and identifying inequities in the distribution structure. For example, it reveals that "in the distribution for 2005 under the federal government licence, the publishers received $188,256 for scholarly journals and the creators received nothing."
The report includes 20 recommendations for change, which include:
CMPDA Claims Camcording All But Disappears in Canada
As a Montreal man pleads not guilty on charges involving camcording in a movie theatre, the Globe ran a story this week in which the CMPDA claims that "only five movies have been illegal recorded in Canada" since the first camcording arrest last October.
Patry on the IIPA
It's never too late to call attention to an exceptional posting – Bill Patry's comments on the IIPA are a must-read.
Canadian DMCA On Hold?
Rumours tonight indicate that the government has again decided to delay introducing the Canadian DMCA. With the House of Commons off next week and the budget coming the following week, if this is true it would appear that there will be no copyright legislation for at least another month (assuming […]
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