Copyright act a fair deal

The copyright landscape in Canada has changed, laying out new economic and moral rights that the creators of digital property have over their work.

The revised Copyright Act, passed last month, was created to address illegally shared music, movies, books, software and other copyrighted online material. For the last 15 years, Canadian copyright rules didn't fully address these issues.

Bill C-11 tightens up the rules surrounding breaking digital locks - it's not allowed under any circumstances - as well as sets a limit for penalties for those caught illegally sharing music - no more than $5,000.

Some of today's most common practices, such as recording a show on your cable-company issued digital video recorder to watch later or transferring music purchased online to your iPod, which were technically illegal under the old act can now be carried out free of threat of litigation.

Critics say the bill is still flawed, but that there are some upsides.

Libraries and educational institutions, for example, will now enjoy broader use of copyrighted material.

Prince George Public Library chief librarian Allan Wilson was among those advocating for changes to the provision of what's known as fair dealing - the ability to use and share copyrighted work for non-commercial purposes.

"The libraries as a group, we put pressure on the government for years to try to modify some of those rules because it was much more onerous than it is now," Wilson said.

Previously, copyright law limited fair dealing to the purposes of research or private study criticism or review or news reporting. It now includes exceptions for education, parody or satire.

Among the positives for libraries include allowing them to make a copy of a work for its permanent collection in an alternative format if it's current format is being rendered obsolete.

"We're the memory of organizations," he said. "So we want the right to preserve these objects in other formats because if there were a disaster or an energy crisis or a solar flare, we could lose a lot of digital data as we move to the online world."

After that technological shift, it took the federal government three elections - beginning with Bill C-60 in 2005 - before they were able to get reform legislation through the House of Commons, leaving post-secondary institutions stuck behind the times as well.

New clauses now allow schools to legally phase out old-fashioned overhead projectors - previous rules only allowed manual reproductions or transparencies for classroom display.

The classroom also loses its public designation. Instructors no longer have to obtain a public performance licence to show movies in class - provided they aren't bootleg copies in the first place.

The new legislation is part of the reason why UNBC has opted out of a new licensing model with Access Copyright, the Canadian copyright licensing agency.

The agreement negotiated by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada in April is for a model licence allowing the schools to reproduce copyright materials in print and digital formats for an annual fee of $26 per full-time equivalent student.

According to a university statement, the decision was based on the size and scope of the library's existing license agreement and the passing of Bill C-11 which included those new fair dealing extensions.

This doesn't mean that all copying on campus is covered (there are six criteria it has to meet), but it certainly broadens the institution's ability for educational copying, said university librarian Gohar Ashoughian.

"If I'm a student and I have an article and I'm copying one copy of it for my private study I don't have to request additional licensing for it, additional clearance for it. It falls within the fair dealing," she said.

The College of New Caledonia hasn't made a decision yet on whether or not it will buy into a similar agreement negotiated with the the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.

The college has until July 31 to make a decision, said chief librarian Kathy Plett, and the changes to the laws will factor in.

"We're just reviewing the contents of the agreement with other colleges in BC right now," she said. The agreement gives schools access to the 22 million works in Access Copyright's repertoire for an annual royalty fee of $10 per full-time equivalent student.

While she couldn't say for sure what they school would do either way, she said CNC wasn't prepared to invent its own copyright office to handle the details of a variety of licensing and permission details that Access Copyright currently takes care of.

"And universities, some of them are in a better position too, because they've already established quite a staff of people to do that stuff," Plett said.

Both schools and libraries are expected to handle enforcement of the rules.

Ashoughian said UNBC was committed to making sure students have access to their resources, "but at the same time we have to make sure resources are accessed in a legal way."

The school has extensive information about copyright on its library website.

According to the act, instructors have to destroy lessons that use copyrighted material within a month after students have received their final grades for the course.

People are also only allowed to make one copy of a piece of copyrighted material and can't share that copy.

A library also has to ensure that "the copy is destroyed within five days of using it."

"That's clearly insane," Wilson said, noting the library isn't equipped to follow people around to make sure they obey the rules. "This is just a silly provision... this is very Soviet. I used to work in Russia in 1992 and I came back here and wondered who won the Cold War."