Copyright bill back on the table; consultations begin today

Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage are reviving efforts to update the Copyright Act, announcing on Friday that it would begin a new round of public consultations starting today in Vancouver. The consultations run across the country until Sept. 13. The framing of the consultation is as follows: “The Government of Canada has committed to modernizing Canada’s copyright laws, to provide meaningful rights for creators and promote the use of digital technology by its citizens. We are consulting to ensure that all perspectives are taken into account in an open and transparent process, to help deliver new legislation in the Fall that is forward-looking, reflects Canadian values, and strengthens Canada’s ability to compete in the global digital economy.” The consultation will include roundtable discussions in locations across the country, a webcast townhall, as well as an online discussion forum. (You can visit the consultation website at: http://copyright.econsultation.ca/) This is the first full copyright consultation since 2001. ACTRA is among the groups supporting the consultations. “If the traffic on Facebook and Twitter is any indication, there are a lot of engaged citizens of all ages eager to talk about copyright reform in Canada – a fantastic trend considering we are talking about copyright law,” Ferne Downey, ACTRA's national president said in a statement. “Canada needs fair copyright laws that ensure creators have control and are compensated for our work. Our new copyright act should make sure artists' rights are not just protected, but strengthened,” he added. This the second attempt in two years to reform Canada’s copyright laws. Bill C-61 was tabled in June 2008 but died that fall on the order paper when an election was called. The proposed legislation would have allowed legal downloading of music to iPods and computers, but would have made it illegal to circumvent any digital locks that companies might apply. That bill also reduced the penalty companies could seek for copyright infringements, from a maximum of $20,000 to $500. The new bill is expected to be as hotly debated as its predecessor. University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, an outspoken credit of Bill C-61, has said that any legislation must ensure that basic user rights are not totally wiped out. “I would like to see an approach modelled from any number of countries, including our own Bill C-60, that creates a direct link between circumvention and copyright infringement so that we preserve some of those basic fair-dealing rights,” Geist told Tech Media Reports last September. “I have been pretty consistent in speaking out for a balanced fair approach,” he said at the time. “The kind of principles there speak to the need for—from an anti-circumvention perspective—ensuring that the existing user-rights, the existing balance that we have in the Copyright Act, is not eviscerated in the digital realm.” He also stressed that a new bill should guarantee and protect fair dealing. Despite attempts to create such an exception in Bill C-61 through format shifting and time shifting, there were so many conditions and restrictions placed on them that they were rendered unworkable, he added.

Copyright bill back on the table; consultations begin today

News | 07/20/2009 4:28 pm EDT

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