The Conservative government’s latest copyright bill is a vast improvement over its predecessors — but one part has seriously negative consequences for most Canadians. The Copyright Modernization Act (Bill C-32) raises important issues for academic staff, and we need to mobilize urgently.

At stake is the right to exchange information freely in the pursuit of knowledge. Having passed second reading, the bill has been sent to committee where amendments will be considered.

Copyright law should strike a fair balance between compensating creators for the use of their work and granting users reasonable access to the work of others. CAUT’s view is that copyright law should: include broad user rights that ensure access to copyrighted works without the explicit permission of the creator, or the rights holder, when it is fair to do so; only criminalize activities that infringe copyright; only require that internet service providers forward notice of claims of infringement from rights holders to their subscribers (a “notice and notice” regime); and restrict monetary damages for infringement.

While not without issues, Bill C-32 is a useful reform. Most important for academic staff, the bill expands the categories of uses that can be considered “fair dealing” (the right to copy without explicit permission or payment) to include “education.” While the Act currently includes “research” and “private study” as categories of fair dealing, the proposed expansion makes clear that any copying of works for educational purposes can qualify.

This will ensure academic staff have access to knowledge under very broad conditions. This makes sense in light of the wide range of circumstances, including teaching and research, in which we use copyright material on a daily basis. It is especially important given the likely difficulty and expense of gaining permission to copy in many circumstances.

While the expansion clarifies user rights in academic settings, it does not mean the end of compensation for creators and rights holders who will continue to be paid for their work through book sales and other forms of distribution. There is no reason to believe that the more than $1.5 billion that educators and students spend on copyrighted works will be affected by the bill.

In addition to the proposals on fair dealing, Bill C-32 contains other useful provisions. It reflects CAUT’s position that there should be a notice and notice system for internet service providers liability for copyrighted material circulating on their networks. If a subscriber is alleged to be engaging in infringing activities online, the service provider is only responsible for forwarding notification from a copyright holder to the subscriber, rather than blocking access to the material as some copyright advocates are seeking.

The bill also limits the level of statutory damages for copyright infringement. Statutory damages do not reflect the actual damage done by an act of infringement, but are amounts spelled out in legislation. The bill proposes a maximum penalty of $5,000 for infringement considered to be noncommercial, a significant reduction from the $20,000 per infringement under the existing
legislation.

But C-32 has a poison pill — unflinching protection for digital locks (technologies that can be embedded in digital works to prevent unauthorized copying and to track how the material has been used). While digital locks may deter piracy, they also prevent users from exercising their legal rights. For example, an academic staff member who has purchased an e-book could find that she is unable to copy a picture from the book to a power point slide to use in a lecture and is also unable to make a copy of the e-book to store on her computer.

The bill, with very few exceptions, does not allow users to tamper with digital locks and it prohibits the distribution or marketing of devices, such as software, that can be used to circumvent digital locks. If the digital lock measures are included in the final bill, they will seriously undermine the progress made for fair dealing as any time a digital lock is applied to a work, all user rights, including fair dealing, become moot.

While CAUT’s stand for expanding fair dealing in Bill C-32 has broad support among allies such as the Canadian Federation of Students and the Canadian Library Association, the publishing industry and other groups are waging a lobbying and advertising campaign against various aspects of the bill. We don’t have the deep pockets of publishers, and our ability to wage expensive public relations campaigns is limited.

But we cannot be indifferent to copyright reform. We must ensure our message is heard by our policy makers. It is important that academic staff associations take the lead in mobilizing and educating their members and the academic community at large. Perhaps now is the time to have a forum or sponsor a talk on the legislation. CAUT will also continue to advocate for academic staff interests in the bill.

At a minimum, I ask you to write to your member of parliament to get the message across that you care about copyright issues and support the proposed law, with the exception of the digital lock provision.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Take Action!
Tips for writing letters