Fair and efficient protection for creators
The Government must ensure that creators of intellectual property are paid for their work, but not multiple times through several collectives for proliferating and overlapping rights for the same transaction.
Fair dealings
There is still no clarity on whether Canadians who copy music to their MP3 players or engage in time, space or format shifting are infringing copyright. The Government of Canada must now decide whether to amend the law to ensure that such activity is permitted by the law. Canadians should enjoy a flexible and open-ended list of fair dealing rights.
TPMs
Consumers need protection from Technological Protection Measures (TPM) rather than the other way around. Rules against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by rights owners in connection with the exercise of their rights should not restrict and should clearly allow circumvention in order to access a work for fair dealing, the making of backup copies, format or time shifting, access to public domain material and other legitimate purposes.
- Rules prohibiting circumvention of TPMs for copyright infringing purposes should target persons who manufacture or traffic in services or devices whose sole purpose is to promote or permit circumvention for commercial gain on a commercial scale and to the material prejudice of rights holders.
- Innovation must not be stemmed. Sufficient limitations to such anti-circumvention rules must be ensured so as not to impede fair dealing and ongoing innovation and research in Canada. Otherwise we risk harming emerging Canadian industries and exposing Canadian businesses and consumers to unnecessary and costly litigation.
In short, Canada must revamp its copyright legislation to match the realities of the 21st century and ensure the development of new consumer friendly technologies.
Private Copying and the Levy scheme
- Private copying: The original intent of the private copy levy was to compensate rights holders of recorded music for private copies being made by consumers for their own personal use onto media that was not really capable of being protected through analog technology. The purpose of a private copy levy is now growing less apparent as legitimate music services exist in Canada and effective technological protection measures are being deployed as necessary by content owners. The government should seriously question the continued existence of the private copy regime. At a minimum, it should abandon any consideration to expand the scope of this now outdated and unfair attempt to find a balance between users and owners' rights.
The January 10, 2008, decision of the Federal Court of Appeal stated that the current legislation does not permit the expansion of the levy beyond blank media to technology such as digital audio recorders The Government of Canada should build upon that language to ensure that the levies are never applied to new types of multipurpose technology.
RCC has long been engaged on copyright issues and recently won a significant battle RCC on the "iPod tax" before the Federal Court of Appeal, click here to find out more.
For more information, please contact Kim Furlong. Vice President, Federal Government Relations, at (613) 751-4442; e-mail: kfurlong@retailcouncil.org.