CCC Canadian copyright reform paper
p2pnet news | Music:- The Creators’ Copyright Coalition says it’s, “committed to access to our creative works just as we are committed to copyright: we work for copyright legislation that ensures both”.
Made up of 19 organisations, it’s launched a formal 18-page statement which can’t be found on its website, but which is available in full on Julianna Yau’s blog.
“From the looks of the copyright coalitions platform, its vision of the future is one in which everyone pays more in fees, and Internet providers are liable for any copyright infringement that is transmitted over their networks,” says Mathew Ingram in the Globe and Mail.
“The CCC includes many large creator associations and copyright collectives,” blogs Michael Geist, observing, “Though there are some notable exceptions – the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, Appropriation Art, and the Documentary Organization of Canada to name three – there are some important voices here.”
He goes on >>>
While the government’s focus on copyright reform has centred on new technologies, the CCC’s position paper seems to focus primarily on non-digital issues. Indeed, the CCC is clearly troubled by the growing concern from users (it talks of “the tendency to privilege users”) and of the Supreme Court of Canada’s emphasis on balancing copyright (it laments that users are “now officially part of an on-going process of striking a ‘necessary balance’”).
The position paper sets out to scale back user concerns by dropping the SCC’s balance objective to one where the “Copyright Act’s main objective is to protect the moral and economic rights of creators.”
Moreover, it seeks to limit the fair dealing provision, by specifically excluding any commercial purposes from within its ambit.
In addition to shifting away from a copyright balance, the CCC looks at copyright reform primarily as the opportunity to introduce new rights and fees. In particular:
- a massive expansion of the private copying levy so that it covers all works (not just sound recordings) and all media
- an extension of the exhibition right to all visual works not in the public domain
- the creation of a new droit de suite right that would pay creators for their work and for any successive sales of their work
- the striking of a provision from the Copyright Act that allows for public reading or recitation of a reasonable extract of a work
- the creation of a new peformers’ right for reproduction
- abolishing a discounted tariff designed to ease the burden on small broadcasters
Moreover, the CCC calls on the government to implement the WIPO Internet treaties and to force ISPs to play a more active role in policing their networks through a notice and takedown system.
The CCC is obviously unconcerned with user rights or the many creators who cite uncertainty of access as a primary worry. Indeed, many will interpret these proposals – limits on fair dealing, expanded private copying, and elimination of public recitation of extracts – as a clear attack on user rights.
This places Industry Minister Jim Prentice in an even greater quandry since he can now add the CCC to the list of groups that will not like his Canadian DMCA.
Geist is the Canada research chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa.
Also See:-
Julianna Yau – My comments on the CCC platform, January, 2008
Globe and Mail – Artists’ coalition wants you to pay up, January 21, 2008
blogs Michael Geist – he CCC on Copyright Reform, January 21, 2008
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January 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Poem on copyright:
Copyright is a bad thing; it should be abolished.
Creativity before copyright exceeds those during copyright; imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
Copyright, created: by publishers to grant monopolies on distribution; not by artists.
To stifle free creativity; to force monopoly.
If there was no (such thing as) copyright, “trade groups” (such as **A(A), IFPI, etc.) would not exist; perversion of the legal system would be less.
Extortion could not be covered up; lawsuits and levies – inexistent.
Repeal WIPO; repeal DMCA.
All of this fucking bullshit; it makes our lives worse.
Fuck copyright; I’m releasing my music and source code into public domain.
If enough people do that; copyright will be rightfully dead.