A new website has been established by 12 Canadian organizations concerned about the impact of C-32 on the sustainability of Canada’s vibrant creative industry. Called “copyrightgetitright” , the site asks Canadians to join them in “defending Canadian culture & heritage”.
The site provides five “fast facts”on Bill C-32:
- C-32 has fundamental flaws that can and must be fixed:while it enhances copyright protections for some digital materials, it paradoxically introduces a long list of new exceptions that jeopardize the economic future of the knowledge workers and content producers at the heart of Canada’s digital economy.
- C-32 punches a hole through Copyright law that could have devastating impact on Canada’s Cultural Industry: new exceptions allow uncompensated use of copyright-protected works by educational institutions, social networking sites and others; markets for the work of creators and publishers stand to be decimated and hundreds of millions of dollars in income wiped out.
- The educations exceptions are anything but “fair:” this is not about school children making a few copies of their favourite poems: the education exception will permit mass, industrial-scale copying (equivalent to millions of books every year) without compensation to the creators and publishers who invested their creativity, skill, money and effort to produce this content. Educators around the world, including in the U.S., need to buy licences to engage in this activity.
- Canada’s Creative Industry has lined up in opposition to C-32: across Canada, songwriters, performers, artists, authors, publishers, and the groups that represent them, have voiced alarm over the new exceptions in C-32 as well as other measures, like reductions in damages payable for infringement (now tougher to prove), that dramatically weaken rights protection and give infringers a free ride.
- Let’s get copyright right so that, without hardship to consumers, Canada’s Creative Industry remains strong and vibrant: Canada’s $46-billion dollar Creative Industry, and the 600,000 knowledge workers it supports, depend on our continuing ability to provide an environment in which the rights of creators enjoy protection under law. C-32 changes the rules in ways that could have devastating impacts on this sector and worrying long-term impairment of Canada’s ability to remain competitive in the new digital economy.
