Berne, Fair Dealing, and other Red Herrings
Michael Geist reports that the International Publishers Association threatens Canada with WTO complaint over Bill C-11. The threatening letter mentions the explicit inclusion of education in the fair dealing provision and a few additional minor exceptions. The publishers allege that the provisions violate the Three Step Test found in the Berne Convention and other treaties. These allegations are baseless. If there are provisions in Bill C-11 that are more suitable candidates for challenge are those that are designed to allow Access Copyright (which represents many of the publishers whose organization sent the letter) to appropriate to itself the copyrights of …