Here is a copy of the article with the above title published in the January 20, 2012 edition of The Lawyers Weekly.
In early December, copyright lawyers from across the country descended on the Supreme Court to participate in a cluster of cases that may redefine the scope of copyright in the digital era.
The UK will not adopt US fair use. This was revealed in statements made by Baroness Wilcox, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills and John Alty, Chief Executive and Comptroller General, Intellectual Property Office, in testimony before the UK Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on November 15, 2011.
Here is a extract from the testimony.
Q219 Chair : At the time, there were assertions that companies such as Google would not start up in this country because of the UK copyright law. Do you still hold that theory now and will Government policy reflect that or accommodate Google?
Last Thursday the Government of Canada introduced into the House of Commons Bill C-11, an Act to Amend the Copyright Act. In a press release describing the Bill, Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Christian Paradis, stated that the Bill will ensure that Canada’s copyright laws “are modern, flexible, and in line with current international standards” and will “protect and help create jobs, promote innovation, and attract new investment to Canada.”
Earlier today, Marc Garneau and guest commentators Michael Geist and Steve Anderson had a live online chat about the Liberal Digital Canada Plan. A transcription of the chat is available here.
The Liberal Digital Plan says the following about copyright:
Fair balance Between Creators and Consumers.
Digital technology offers many new opportunities, but enjoying content without compensating its creators shouldn’t be among them. At the same time, consumers should have freedom for personal use of digital content they rightfully possess. Liberals have worked to pass effective copyright legislation, including a private copying compensation fund instead of any new tax on consumers.
Here is a video included in a blog How copyright infringement is like stealing my sandwhich. It is by an artist “to put copyright infringement into terms the average person can understand: lunch”. It is an interesting perspective given the recent testimony of Margaret Atwood at the Parliamentary Committee on Bill C-32.
By Dan Glover
Last week, a dispute arose about the scope of the “fair dealing for the purpose of … education” language proposed in Bill C-32, an Act to Amend the Copyright Act. This dispute was captured in a February 16 blog by John Degen, in which he discussed a running battle with the writer Cory Doctorow about what the Copyright Act currently allows in respect of fair dealing, and what it would allow under the proposed regime. Doctorow’s views are contained here in a responding blog.
Par Dan Glover,* 9 janvier 2011 (version originale en Anglais)
Résumé
Abstract*
· The creation of copyright works for educational uses is a complex and substantial endeavour, particular in a country as large, diverse and sparsely populated as Canada. Careful thought should be given before adopting fair dealing rules that threaten the health of educational publishing.
· “Fairness” is an eye-of-the-beholder concept that must be revisited on the facts of every new case. Only six years after the landmark CCH case on “fair dealing”, this issue is returning to the Supreme Court for a second review!
Here are slides from the speech I gave earlier today at Osgoode Hall Law School’s professional development program on understanding Bill C-32. The speech focused on the proposed fair dealing exceptions including the new exception for education, exceptions for individuals including the UGC, format shifting, time shifting, and back-up copy exceptions, and the new exceptions for developing interoperable programs, encryption research, network security testing, and technological processes.
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