New Canadian Report Offers Balanced Recommendations for Progressive Copyright Reform

"Earlier this week the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) released a report with 36 recommendations on the statutory review of Canadian copyright law. The report caps a year-long study, including a public consultation and committee hearings that included a variety of stakeholders.

The document makes progressive recommendations that support a more balanced copyright regime. Michael Geist provides an overview, including the following key findings that, if pursued, could fortify and expand user rights under the Canadian copyright system:

• expansion of fair dealing by making the current list of fair dealing purposes illustrative rather than exhaustive (by using more open ended legislative language like “such as”),
• rejection of new limits on educational fair dealing with further study in three years,
• retention of existing Internet safe harbour rules,
• rejection of the FairPlay site blocking proposal with insistence that any blocking include court oversight,
• expansion of the anti-circumvention rules by permitting circumvention of digital locks for purposes that are lawful (ie. permit circumvention to exercise fair dealing rights),
• extend the term of copyright only if ratifying the USCMA and include a registration requirement for the additional 20 years,
• implement a new informational analysis (also known as text and data mining) exception,
• further study of statutory damages for all copyright collectives along with greater transparency,
• adoption of an open licence rather than the abolition of crown copyright (i.e., putting the works directly into the public domain)...."