internet previews

Last week the Federal Court of Appeal released an important decision on the scope of the fair dealing exception in the judicial review in the SOCAN Tariff 22 case (2010 FCA 123). The issue before the Court was whether online music services have the benefit of the fair dealing exception in section 29 of the Copyright Act when they offer customers previews of music files of up to 30 seconds to help them select music to purchase. The Court, following the decision of the Copyright Board, ruled they do.…