Record producer exec confident copyright bill will be tabled before holidays

The head of the Canadian Independent Record Production Association is confident the much-anticipated amendments to the Canadian Copyright Act will be tabled in the House of Commons this week. While news outlets reported yesterday that Industry Minister Jim Prentice will now delay tabling the bill until 2008, CIRPA president and executive director Duncan McKie calls this "wishful thinking" from those who oppose copyright reform. Prentice put on Monday's order paper that the bill would be introduced, which usually means it will be tabled the following day. However, the CBC reported an Industry spokesperson said the bill would not be introduced today, and couldn't confirm if it would be by the end of this week. If not, it will be delayed until 2008; Parliament breaks for Christmas after Friday's session. "For government to pull something off the order paper is extraordinary," says McKie. "It's possible they won't get to it and it'd be interesting to see why they wouldn't."One reason being touted is opposition to copyright reform. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa and a leader in the battle against US-style copyright law in Canada, started the Facebook group Fair Copyright For Canada on December 1 that today has 15,721 members. But while the CBC ran its story under the headline, "Copyright reform bill critics eye victory," Geist downplayed that notion in his blog today. "While there is now considerable celebration about the delay, in my view such celebration is premature," he wrote. "The decision to delay the bill is the right one, but it could still reappear within the next few days." Geist hopes Prentice uses the extra time to develop copyright legislation that represents the interests of all Canadians, not just the intellectual property rights holders. Of course, what critics fear is the proposed legislation will mirror the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and result in rights holders suing fans for behaviour such as filesharing and copying music and video files. McKie doesn't believe that would happen in Canada regardless of the legislation. "We don't think that ushers in a period of recrimination against the consumer," he says. "We know that the major US labels here aren't going to go out and start suing people. We know that our labels aren't going to go out and start suing people." A bigger issue, according to McKie, is if the government decides that internet service providers have an obligation to copyright holders to protect their property. If ISPs are exempt from copyright obligations, he says, solutions to monetize filesharing like the Songwriters Association of Canada's ISP music levy would be "blown away." And although McKie is confident the bill will be tabled in 2007, he says he would absolutely be concerned if it doesn't happen in the next three days. "It would mean that for some reason the industry minister has backed off, and it'd be interesting to find out why," he says. "Not getting it isn't the end of the world, but we've made it pretty clear that we want to go through with this."

Record producer exec confident copyright bill will be tabled before holidays

Broadcast | December 11, 2007

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