[Meera Nair, Fair Duty, Link (CC-BY-NC-SA)] Tomorrow marks the start of Fair Dealing Week in Canada. There is much to be proud of with the steady advance in the realm of exceptions, gained not by intemperate action but by deliberative thought on the part of the judiciary, the government, the Copyright Board, and, institutions and individuals across the country. A moment of celebration and pride is warranted. Yet, significant challenges remain. Educational institutions continue to be a favorite target with copyright owners. Those who take aim at fair dealing lack a cogent argument grounded in either legality or economics, and so must rely on hyperbole. The picture painted is that educational institutions steal from an industry which is on its deathbed, to the detriment of those individuals who carry the very soul of the nation.
In the absence of informed discussion, emotion can masquerade as logical thought. With our sesquicentennial year upon us, the emotion index will likely exceed what hysteria we have already seen. Unfortunately, many Canadians (and their representatives in government) are unaware of the nuance of copyright, that it is a system of limited rights. This post is written with the hope of reaching some of those individuals.
For those who do not yet know what fair dealing means in an educational environment, have a look at Student Life without Fair Dealing. This presentation was created a few years ago by Annie Ludbrook of Ryerson University; it remains the best illustration of how necessary fair dealing is to learning, and takes only a minute or two to view.
And, if interested in a larger story, please see below.
“Millions of times a day copyright material is probably shared in this country.”[1]
That phrase stood out among the miscellany that a Sunday-morning excursion into Twitter had unearthed. Said by a Federal court judge, it was in reference to a dispute over unauthorized uses of material protected by copyright. This dispute (later resolved in favour of fair dealing) is only one of many skirmishes in an ongoing Great Battle in the realm of copyright. Ever since it became apparent that digital technology set on world-wide networks has considerable potential for distribution, copyright holders and copyright users alike have claimed those streams of sharing. To some, sharing represents a threat to the very production of creative material; to others, such sharing is creativity’s salvation.
But the contemporary clash of views is not the first Great Battle fought in the name of copyright. Matthew Arnold, renowned poet and social commentator of 19th century England, bestowed the title on a Royal Commission which probed the very structure of copyright as a grant of monopoly power and openly questioned its usefulness. Eventually, the outcome supported the continuance of copyright as it was designed and has functioned so ever since.
But a critical point has almost been lost to history; the decision was not unanimous. Ten of the fifteen commissioners attached dissenting opinions to the final report, dissatisfaction brewed even among the victors. One could say that the only element of absolute unanimity was the implicit boundary that circumscribed any assertion of copyright: copyright was a means to govern the conduct of players in the commercial book market.
Meaning, copyright was a trade regulation imposed on corporate entities. Yet by virtue of what will long be rued as a poor choice of vocabulary, today the language of copy suggests that copyright may privatise the intellectual and creative activity of individuals.
Copyright falls within a branch of law addressing what has come to be known as intellectual property, a phrase of equally dubious construction. We are told that Thomas Jefferson was the first to associate intellectual creation as property, a word expressly chosen in order to break with the English tradition of declaring such rights as monopolies (a practice of control that functioned to the detriment of the people in England).[2]
Ironically, three centuries later, intellectual property rights are just as capable of being harnessed towards monopolistic behavior. For instance, efforts by literary estates to curtail scholarly work,[3] a steep escalation of textbook costs,[4] and the thirty-year effort it took to reach an international agreement allowing some manner of adaption and distribution of copyrighted materials to aid visually-disabled people,[5] should disabuse anyone of the notion that copyright can do no harm.
A cogent argument for some control over intellectual creations does exist. It is reasonable that writers, artists, musicians, et al, should receive remuneration when their creations are exchanged in a professional marketplace. Many will agree that the likelihood of development of creative effort is heightened when there is assurance of some rights of control after creativity has been exercised. But perpetual furor over copyright eclipses a vital factor: that control is insufficient to bring about creativity.
Creative effort does not occur by the presence of rights alone. Creativity needs knowledge, awareness, skill, diligence, luck, fodder, and something else that lacks capture in a single word; loosely speaking, this indefinable element is a capacity to envision that which others may not. A confluence of all these elements might result in developments in art, music, literature, or science.
In this light, the creative process seems less and less the purview of law, and more and more some manner of alchemy, or worse. According to Voltaire: “One must be possessed of the Devil, to succeed in any of the arts.”[6] Alternatively, one constant theme regarding creative effort is to engage with other creative effort. William Faulkner’s advice: “Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad …. You’ll absorb it. Then write.”[7] Or this declaration from Margaret Atwood: “The first thing I did when starting this project was to reread the play. Then I read it again. Then I got my hands on all the films of it that I could find, and watched them. Then I read the play again… then I read it again, backwards.”[8]
And yet, law dominates discussions of fostering creative effort. Likely because law is specific, law can be written down, law can be upheld, or, violated and then wielded as an instrument of retribution. Addressing the law meets a political goal—to show that something is being done. Three centuries ago, copyright law was created under the façade of supporting starving authors; that trope reappears as each development in media is cast as a threat to literary or other artistic endeavors. The refrain repeats: Dire consequences will lie ahead for society as a whole, unless something is done.
Today, the repercussions of amending copyright law far exceed the mandate of trade regulation. Technological development has brought us to a point where we live our private lives through copies. Unauthorized use is a vital step to creativity and needs protection.
Fair dealing is a very modest exception to the monopoly of copyright. A fair dealing of copyrighted work must not only fit within prescribed categories of use (education is among them) but must also survive a fairness analysis. The educational community takes its responsibilities seriously; no institution would sanction unrestrained copying as fair dealing. Yet this is the image presented by those who prefer to cast fair dealing as something to fear and something to blame.
Footnotes:
[1] Justice Barnes, quoted by Graham C. Gordon, Loonie Politics. 24 September 2016.
[2] The praecursor to copyright were the printing privileges bestowed upon guilds; the most powerful among them holding control over the printing of widely used classes of books such as catechisms, bibles, ABCs, and lawbooks. Philosopher John Locke condemned all monopolies as hoarding money and property to the detriment of the kingdom and was particularly incensed at the system which enabled booksellers to charge high prices for poorly produced books.
[3] A case of note was the unwillingness of James Joyce’s estate to recognize fair use in scholarly work; see Schloss v. Estate of James Joyce.
[4] For instance, “…new textbook prices increased by a total of 82 percent over [2002-2012],” see Students Have Greater Access to Textbook Information, U.S. Government Accountability Office. There does not appear to be comparable data for Canadian students, but as products are generally more expensive to purchase in Canada, it is unlike that the situation would be better on this side of the border.
[5] James Love, “A Treaty for the Blind?” Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Information Journal (2006), Vol. 22 Issue 12. See also Meera Nair, “Wonderful news from Marrakesh,” in FairDuty, 6 June 2013,
[6] Quoted in Nancy Mitford’s Voltaire in Love (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1957).
[7] “The Best Writing Tips From William Faulkner,” 25 September 2013, Huffington Post.
[8] Margaret Atwood, 24 September 2016, The Guardian.
