Excerpt from blog by Pascale Chapdelaine, Link
Professors Pascale Chapdelaine and Myra Tawfik, and nine other Canadian intellectual property scholars [1] recently co-signed a brief submitted to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology in the context of the Statutory Review of the Copyright Act. [2] Animated by guiding principles of the need to maintain a balanced, distinctly Canadian copyright system, and to steer clear of “copyright exceptionalism,” the brief contains several recommendations of amendments to the Act. Here are excerpts from the brief and a summary of its key elements….
… The brief contains several recommendations toward solidifying the scope of users’ rights to copyright works including:
- Substituting fair dealing provisions with fair-use style provisions, as it would bring more flexibility to the Canadian copyright system and as new technologies continue to emerge;
- Confirming there shall be no contracting out of exceptions to copyright infringement in non-negotiated standard form agreements (and a presumption of non-enforceability of contract-out clauses in negotiated agreements);
- That anti-circumvention technological protection measures (TPMs) should not override user rights;
- That copyright users’ remedies be specifically recognized when users are improperly restrained in making legitimate uses of copyright works, and the introduction of new administrative oversight of copyright owners’ business practices and increasing use of algorithms and AI as copyright self-enforcement mechanisms.
