Is new copyright legislation on the horizon? Copyright collectives think so

On July 16 intellectual property rights took the global stage with the release of Combating IPR Piracy and Counterfeiting from the G8 Group at the G8 Summit 2006 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Two days later, the issue got a national focus when a collective of Canadian creators-rights coalitions congratulated the federal government for being party to the statement. But what exactly does a declaration about global piracy and counterfeiting have to do with Canada? As with most copyright issues, it’s open to individual interpretation. "It’s piracy and counterfeiting…but when you delve deeper it’s also really dealing with the entire online world and digital rights management, which is just accelerating so rapidly," says Stephen Stohn, president of Epitome Pictures Inc. "Overall, it’s just having that strong affirmation. It speaks to the technological changes that we’re going through in our industry." Stohn is an active participant in copyright issues on behalf of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA), one of the groups that issued the statement applauding the government. The rest of the collective included the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Net-work, Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, Canadian Music Publishers Association, Can-adian Publishers Council, Canadian Recording Industry Association, Entertainment Software Associa-tion of Canada and Music Industries Association of Canada. The collective praised the Government of Canada for its "strong and unqualified support for intellectual property rights," and committing itself to protecting IP in the digital age. It added: "The introduction and passage of new federal copyright legislation will be a key step to fulfilling the commitments." However, whether Canada’s cooperation in the G8 statement indicates that new federal copyright legislation is on the horizon is, again, a point of debate. Michael Geist, the Canada research chair of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, says the copyright lobby is reaching to connect the two. He blogged on his website that the issues covered by the G8 group barely relate to copyright reform matters in Canada, such as anti-circumvention legislation, ISP liability, and an expanded fair dealing right. "When the statement seeks to try and link the G8 statement with future copyright reform, I think it’s important to clarify that there really is no link," Geist tells Canadian NEW MEDIA. "I think they understand what’s at work, but at the same time they saw here an opportunity to somehow bring into debate the notion that Canada made some new intellectual property commitments through the G8." The G8 statement reiterated the international group’s dedication to strengthening individual and collective efforts to fight piracy and counterfeiting. It also listed concrete measures to be put in place in the near term including: creating a website in each G8 country to inform businesses and individuals on securing and enforcing intellectual property rights in that country; studying the possibilities of strengthening the international legal framework pertaining to IPR enforcement; and cooperating with various global IPR, anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting organizations, including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), to develop and implement technical assistance in developing countries to battle trade in counterfeited and pirated goods. "In the Canadian context," says Stohn, "the priority to promoting and upholding laws, regulations and procedures, that could be the kind of nudge – and an indication since Harper was there – that Canada will be taking more of a priority to strengthening our laws and implementing the WIPO legislation and things like that." Although he believes that the government is committed to following through on copyright updates, Stohn says the collective will remain vigilant to ensure it moves forward quickly. Part of this belief comes from the fact that Canada has fallen behind much of the developed world in updating its copyright laws, according to Stohn. And as the industry has been waiting for the laws to be updated, it has also fallen behind in terms of making legal content available online. "I think if we can get the laws in place we can make the product available," he says. "But it may take a generation because there’s a whole decade of particularly young Canadians who don’t think it’s illegal to download a streamed product of any sort, and you don’t change that overnight and you certainly don’t change it just by enacting stronger copyright legislation." Education and time are the other factors that will help establish a copyright landscape that is fair for rights-holders and users. Geist is wary of how fair such legislation will be for everyone, and says that considering all of the significant global issues worth of discussion at the G8 Summit, the fact that IPR was brought up illustrates the enormous power of the copyright lobby. He also feels the G8 Group missed the mark with its aforementioned reference to WIPO. The WIPO Development Agenda is intended to treat IPR in developing countries with special nuance, and Geist says it’s an American notion to think that the only development that’s needed is technical assistance in implementing IP enforcement in these regions. "There’s always concern that you’ll end up with one-sided advice in terms of what the public is being told on these issues," he adds. And as the copyright lobby continues to push for new legislation, Stohn understands that not everyone can be fully accommodated. He says: "There’s so many different paths and we have to be doing them all simultaneously, because no one path is going to work and nothing is going to be perfect."

Is new copyright legislation on the horizon? Copyright collectives think so

News | 07/25/2006 4:00 am EDT

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