Copyright - News

  • CIPPIC Joins Canadian, American & Mexican Law Professors, Academics and Policy Experts Calling for Copyright Balance in Trade Agreements
    – 2017-11-15 –

    NAFTA MapCIPPIC has joined international copyright law experts calling for NAFTA and other trade negotiators to support a set of balanced copyright principles. In "The Washington Principles on Copyright Balance in Trade Agreements", the experts urge trade negotiators to support policies like fair dealing, safe harbor provisions, and other exceptions and limitations that permit and encourage access to knowledge, flourishing creativity, and innovation.

    Signers lay out the following copyright principles to ensure consumers’ digital rights:

    • Protect and promote copyright balance, including fair dealing
    • Provide technology-enabling exceptions, such as for search engines and text- and data-mining
    • Require safe harbor provisions to protect online platforms from users’ infringement
    • Ensure legitimate exceptions for anti-circumvention, such as documentary filmmaking, cybersecurity research, and allowing assistive reading technologies for the blind
    • Adhere to existing multilateral commitments on copyright term
    • Guarantee proportionality and due process in copyright enforcement

    Read the text:

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  • CIPPIC Comments on Resumption of TPP Negotiations
    – 2017-10-30 –

    CIPPIC today filed with global Affairs Canada its comments on the resumption of negotiations over the Trans Pacific Partnership. The withdrawal of the United States from the TPP offers an opportunity to improve the agreement and address some of the more problematic provisions of the previously-concluded trade agreement. CIPPIC's Comments focus on:

    • process & transparency;
    • problems with the Investor State Dispute Mechanism (ISDS);
    • digital trade and privacy issues; and
    • balance in the intellectual property provisions.

    11/07/2017 UPDATE: In response to reports that some TPP-11 states were considering freezing several provisions of the TPPA, including problematic provisions on data localization, cross-border privacy and ISDS, CIPPIC submitted a followup letter to the Honorouable François-Philippe Champagne, the Minister of International Trade, calling on Canada to support a freeze of these provisions in APEC meetings taking place this week. As the letter points out, all of these provisions were concessions to the United States and have not been shown to benefit Canada in any way. As the United States is no longer a party to the TPP, the provisions should not be included in any finalized version of that agreement.

    Image Credit: Jason Garber, CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0, May 2, 2006, Flickr

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  • CIPPIC Submission on Copyright Board Review
    – 2017-09-29 –

    CIPPIC's submissions to the Copyright Board's consultations on Options for Reform focuses on five key reforms: 

    • adopt shorter timeframes;
    • implement case management;
    • implement a streamlined evidentiary process;
    • extend tariff length to 5 years and eliminate tariff retroactivity; and
    • allow for interveners in tariff proceedings.

    CIPPIC suggests that, regardless of the specific approach to reform ultimately adopted by the Board, addressing these five issues would create for greater certainty in the marketplace, improve the efficacy of decision-making, and make tariff proceedings quicker, less wasteful, and less costly.

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  • CIPPIC Joins Civil Society Call for NAFTA Transparency
    – 2017-08-18 –

    CIPPIC has joined with dozens of civil society groups across North America to call on Canada, the United States and Mexico to call upon the United States, Mexico and Canada "to meaningfully reform trade negotiation processes to make them more transparent, inclusive and accountable".  

    NAFTA intellectual property and digital trade negotiations could potentially overhaul the normative approach of all three counties to these important areas of law.  Such discussions should actively seek civil society participation, not curtail it.  The August 18th joint letter, penned by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specifically calls for:

    • public release of text proposals by governments before negotiations, with clear processes established for members of the public to comment on them;
    • consolidated versions of negotiating texts published between negotiating rounds;
    • locations and times of key meetings announced well ahead of time; and
    • the establishment of consultative trade groups that are broadly representative of both business and public interest stakeholders with a commitment to conducting deliberations openly.
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  • CIPPIC Submission to Global Affairs on NAFTA
    – 2017-07-18 –

    CIPPIC's submission to Global Affairs Canada on the re-negotiation of NAFTA calls for transparency and caution.  CIPPIC's letter groups its recommendations under three broad categories:

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  • Canada Wins NAFTA Arbitration on Canadian Patent Law
    – 2017-03-21 –

    A NAFTA Arbitration Panel has dismissed Eli Lilly's claim for compensation from the Canadian government for the invalidation of two of its patents by the Supreme Court of Canada.  Lilly claimed that Canada's utility standard under patent law failed to meet its NAFTA obligations, and that the invalidation of its patents amounted to an expropriation that entitled it to a remedy under NAFTA's investor protection provisions.

    Lilly's argument sought to leverage international trade investor protection provisions to shape the general contours of substantive intellectual property law.  The Panel rejected that invitation, declining to challenge courts' supervisory role over patentability in the Canadian patent system, stating that "a NAFTA Chapter Eleven tribunal is not an appellate tier" and that it would be inappropriate for a NAFTA tribunal to assess judicial conduct against NAFTA obligations other than in "exceptional circumstances, in which there is clear evidence of egregious and shocking conduct."   

    Decision:

    Previously:

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  • Federal Court Finds Fair Dealing in Blacklock’s Reporter v AG Canada
    – 2016-11-10 –

    The Federal Court of Canada has found that obtaining, reading and distributing paywalled articles for the purposes of assessing and responding to the contents of those articles constituted fair dealing under the Copyright Act.

    In a tightly drafted judgement, Justice Barnes found that the Finance Department employees exercised their fair dealing rights for research purposes in receiving a pair of articles from a Blacklock's subscriber, and reading and sharing those articles internally with other Department employees.  Justice Barnes rejected Blacklock's arguments that its terms of use barred such dealing, noting that it was not Blacklock's practice to explicitly bring such terms to the attention of users, and, in any event, those terms contained an ambiguity permitting reproduction and distribution for non-commercial, personal or educational purposes.

    Given the outcome of its fair dealing analysis, Justice Barnes saw no need to address the Government's claim that Blacklock's practices constituted copyright misuse, although he did note that there are "certainly some troubling aspects to Blacklock's business practices".  The Court awarded costs to the Government.

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  • Blacklock’s Reporter v AG Canada Wraps Up
    – 2016-09-21 –

    The trial in Blacklock’s Reporter v Attorney-General Canada ended today with the parties’ closing arguments.

    Justice Barnes opened the day inviting the parties to make submissions focusing on the legal implications of what happened between the parties.

    Plaintiff’s counsel opened argument with a brief review of the documentary evidence, and suggested that there were four issues:  (1) infringement, (2) fair dealing, (3) copyright misuse, and (4) damages.

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  • Voltage Obtains Norwich Order in Reverse Class Action
    – 2016-07-28 –

    Voltage Pictures and its litigation partners - the applicants in a file-sharing "reverse class action" - have been granted a Norwich Order in respect of a single John Doe. The Court limited its Order to the name and address of the Rogers subscriber (the Applicants had sought additional information such as email address) and required payment to Rogers at its hourly fee for providing the subscriber data (the Applicants had argued that the new notice and notice provisions of the Copyright Act meant that Rogers had to provide this information for free). CIPPIC intervened in the motion on the narrow issue of the privacy protections and limits that might be required of any such order. It is possible that Voltage and its partners might appeal the decision on the issue of paying ISP costs. However, with the Order in hand, Voltage and its litigation partners are in place to begin discovery against the Doe with the goal of having the Doe appointed as the representative defedant and moving towards certification of its controversial reverse class proceeding.

    UPDATE: On Friday, August 5, 2016, Voltage filed a Notice of Appeal, FCA File No A-278-16, with the Federal Court of Appeal, challenging the Federal Court's conclusion that it cannot pass the cost of enforcing its rights on to Rogers' customers. Voltage did not seek a stay of the Proposed Class Action Proceeding and, as a result, it appears as though the class proceeding and the appeal will proceed in parallel.

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  • CIPPIC, CGRC Publish TK Open Licensing Proposal
    – 2016-07-11 –

    CIPPIC and Carleton University’s Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre have proposed the creation of a Traditional Knowledge open licensing scheme to help overcome some of the challenges associated with granting and obtaining permission for the use and sharing of traditional knowledge.  The scheme envisions a series of open licenses - similar to Creative Commons licenses -  responsive to the needs of granting communities that help overcome some of the obstacles parties routinely encounter in granting and obtaining permission for the use and sharing of traditional knowledge.

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