Featured

Blog, Copyright, Featured, Stationers

Earlier this month I suspected that the US copyright lobby might soon mount a new attack on Canada’s copyright law. It turns out that the attack had begun that very same day. Here’s the written testimony of the IIPA from Sept. 4, 2012, which, as Michael Geist reports, will be heard orally today. American readers might be particularly interested in footnote #1, which apparently refers to Canada’s new fair dealing provision, which explicitly mentions education, parody, and satire, as allowable fair dealing purposes. The IIPA takes issue with this amendment: In particular, we note that the new Canadian copyright reform …

Blame Canada! Read more →

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured, Stationers

The Copyright Board held today that the disputed copies in Access Copyright’s K-12 tariff, the copies that were subject to the appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada in Alberta (Education) v. Access Copyright constitute fair dealing. In its previous ruling, the Board held that those copies were not fair dealing. This ruling, upheld by the Federal Court of Appeal, was ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found that “Because the Board’s finding of unfairness was based on what was … a misapplication of the CCH factors, its outcome was rendered unreasonable”. The Court allowed the appeal with costs …

Copyright Board: Category 4 copies are fair dealing Read more →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured, Stationers

In a lengthy post last week, Barry Sookman responded, and attempted to refute, Michael Geist’s analysis of the implications of the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s decisions on Access Copyright and its business model. In a nutshell, Michael Geist argued that schools, which already have directly negotiated licenses with numerous publishers, can now “rely more heavily on fair dealing for the copying that takes place on campus and in the classroom. This includes copies made by teachers for students for instructional purposes, copies that previously formed a core part of Access Copyright’s claim of the necessity of a licence.” Michael Geist …

Eviscerated or Not: More on the Access Copyright Question Read more →

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured

Yesterday, Howard Knopf and I talked about the recent developments in Canadian copyright law in an event organized by the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University, Washington College of Law. A third speaker was Prof. Martin Senftleben from the University of Amsterdam who offered a very interesting and informative analysis on those issues from a European civil law perspective. The webcast and a summary of the talks are archived here.  

Blog, Copyright, Featured, Stationers

There seems to be some real interest in the recent developments in Canadian copyright law south of the border. Next week, two separate events will take place in Washington DC. On Sept. 12, Howard Knopf and I will talk about the recent developments at American University Law School. The title of our talk is: “Canadian Copyright: Calm, Cool, and Clever”. The event is organized by the Program on Informational Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Law School. Martin Senftleben from VU University of Amsterdam will offer additional analysis of fair dealing from a European perspective. More details here. The following day, …

Canadian Copyright is Coming to the USA Read more →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured

My paper The Orphans, the Market, and the Copyright Dogma: A Modest Solution to a Grand Problem is now posted on SSRN. I presented an earlier version at the Berkeley Orphan Works and Mass Digitization Symposium last April. Here’s the abstract: This article proposes a modest common law solution to the orphan works problem: works that are still under copyright but whose owners cannot be easily located. Most discussions on the orphan works problem focus on the demand side: on users’ inability to locate owners. However, this article looks also at the supply side and shows that the problem of orphan works arises …

The Orphans, the Market, and the Copyright Dogma Read more →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Featured

I’m one of the signatories of an amicus brief filed with the US Supreme Court in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons. The case involves parallel importation of books and whether the first sale doctrine applies to copies that were made (with permission of the copyright holder) outside the US. Here’s the abstract of the brief: The first sale doctrine has long provided that legitimate owners of non-infringing copies of copyrighted works may use and sell their copies as they see fit — just as all property owners may generally use and alienate their property. In keeping with that rationale, …

Brief of 25 Intellectual Property Law Professors in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons Read more →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured, Stationers

The Canadian Library Association has issued a “Statement on Licenses with Access Copyright in Post-Secondary Institutions“. CLA thinks, quite correctly, that these licenses are uncool. While viewing the move from Copyright Board proceedings to contractual negotiations as a welcome development, the CLA is unimpressed with the result. Therefore, The Canadian Library Association strongly urges academic leaders to consider other alternatives that ensure lawful use of works protected by copyright without requiring a license agreement with Access Copyright. Alternatives include: institutional policies and practices based upon fair dealing, fuller utilization of institutions’ licensed electronic holdings, use of open access resources, use …

The Canadian Library Association on Access Copyright Licenses: Dislike Read more →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured, Stationers

The Copyright Board of Canada and that various tariffs that it certifies rarely attract media attention. But a tariff recently certified received coverage by most major media outlets. That tariff, mandating payments for playing recorded music in weddings and other events for the years 2008-2012, will be collected by Re:Sound, a private organization representing record companies and performing musicians. If the events include dancing, the fee is double. This unusual media attention, often describing the fees as a “wedding tax” or “dancing tax”, is not surprising because it reflects how undemocratic some aspects of Canada’s copyright system have become. If …

Copyright Taxation Without Representation Read more →

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured, Stationers, Uncategorized

I received a copy of a document in which McMaster University provides answers to some of the questions arising out of its decision to sign the Model License with Access Copyright. Since many universities are grappling with similar questions and answers, I have taken the liberty of providing some responses to this document. The document is in a Q&A form, so I added my responses in green below each answer. You can read it here.