Filed under: intellectual property, law | Tags: intellectual property, law
One of the many advantages to living in Canada instead of the United States is the state of Canadian copyright law. It is reasonable that people who create things (like music, books etc) be able to financially benefit from such things for a limited period of time. Balancing against that is the right of fair dealing which protects copying for private research, criticism, news reporting (hmm… I wonder if blog writers are protected like journalists in Canada?) and more. These exceptions are needed to foster greater creativity, innovation and research not to mention education. In the Throne Speech, the federal government said that it was interested in amending copyright law. It was widely suspected that such changes would involve copying American law, such as the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The proposed new copyright act would essentially eliminate all exceptions to copyright, in the interests of greater commercial gains. As with so many things, law professor Michael Geist has good commentary on this. You can also read about yesterday’s development on the CBC. What I find most inspiring here is that MPs et al actually responded to popular unrest about the problem. There are quite a few issues (e.g. increase funding for CBC, lower university tuition fees, introduce carbon taxes, the list goes on) that I care about and that people encourage letter writing about, but I’ve been skeptical about the effectiveness of such campaigns.
Other links to consider:
Online Rights Canada
Fair Copyright
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
