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Barry Sookman, Dan Glover, Connor Bildfell

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Supreme Court of Canada confirms all acts of making available are covered by Copyright Act: SOCAN v ESA

Barry Sookman Supreme Court appellant lawyer

In a decision just released in Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Entertainment Software Association, 2022 SCC 30, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that Canada fully implemented its WIPO copyright Internet Treaty “making available” obligations through a combination of the communication to the public, reproduction, and authorization rights. In doing so, the Court held that any unauthorized act of making a work available online, and any subsequent unauthorized streaming or downloading of the work, are infringing.…

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Privacy and Clearview, Facial recognition
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Exceptions from consent in PIPEDA: facial recognition, privacy and Clearview

PIPEDA requires consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information. PIPEDA also has many exceptions where consents are not required. These exceptions are part of the balance in PIPEDA and enable uses of public information for purposes that are in the public interest. The collection of photos from online sources by Clearview AI, Inc. (“Clearview”) using facial recognition software to facilitate use by law enforcement was recently found to be illegal following a joint investigation by the federal Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“OPC” or the “Commissioner”) and privacy Commissioners from Quebec (“CAI”), Alberta (“OIPC AB”), and British Columbia (“OIPC BC”) (the “Offices”).…

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Redefining copyright in the digital era

Here is a copy of the article with the above title published in the January  20, 2012 edition of The Lawyers Weekly.

In early December, copyright lawyers from across the country descended on the Supreme Court to participate in a cluster of cases that may redefine the scope of copyright in the digital era.

The first case heard, ESA v. SOCAN, put the question directly to the court of how the bundle of rights set out in s. 3 of the Copyright Act ought to be construed in the case of downloads of files containing musical works. …

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C-32 enablement remedy targets secondary copyright infringement

Mark Twain once famously commented, “Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.” Canadian copyright law bears the burden of his axiom more than most. The pith of our copyright law dates from a 1911 bill passed in the United Kingdom, which we adopted wholesale in the early 1920s, and have not kept current with the changes in time.

Our law, which was designed to deal with player pianos and renegade printing presses, and later traditional broadcast techologies like radio and TV, is occasionally called upon to deal with illegal filesharing on the Internet.…

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Digital Copying and Libraries: Copyright and Licensing Considerations

The following article is an electronic version of an article published in the February 2010 issue of Feliciter.

Digital technologies are changing how libraries make available books, articles and other works to the public. There is clear demand for these services, and they provide unprecedented benefits to both libraries and their patrons.

However, librarians should be aware that the uses of digital media, such as books or articles in electronic form, e-books and audio books, raise legal issues that do not arise with making available traditional printed materials.…

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Graduated response and copyright: an idea that is right for the times

This is a copy of an article published in The Lawyers Weekly (January  2010) by Barry Sookman and Dan Glover.

In mid-2009, the Canadian government launched a nationwide consultation meant to canvass what amendments to the Copyright Act are necessary to support Canada’s participation in the global, digital economy, and to foster innovation, creativity, competition and investment.

There is no doubt that our copyright laws need amending. Amendments are required on a number of fronts. New exceptions are required to meet legitimate user expectations to access and use copyright content without infringement.…

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More Fickle than Fair: Why Canada Should Not Adopt A Fair Use Regime

Article from The Lawyers Weekly. November 20, 2009, by Barry Sookman and Dan Glover

In July, the Canadian government launched a nationwide consultation on copyright modernization, asking Canadians what changes should be made to the Copyright Act to best foster innovation, creativity, competition and investment, and position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy.

During this process, advocates of copyright liberalization have called to replace Canada’s longstanding fair dealing provisions with a general fair use provision. In Canada, fair dealing is a defence to an infringement claim that allows a person to use copyright fairly for certain identified purposes.…

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Barry Sookman
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