c-32 Archives

Key issues on the legal protection for TPMs under Bill C-32

There has been considerable debate about the appropriate scope for legal protection of TPMs under Bill C-32. I dealt with this issue in a speech I gave today at the Insight Conference: RIGHTS and COPYRIGHT, Bringing Canada into the 21st Century.

The questions I discussed were the following:

Does Bill C-32 properly implement the WIPO Treaties consistent with approaches used by Canada’s trading partners?
Does Bill C-32 permit circumvention of TPMs to permit copying for fair dealing, educational and other purposes?

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My C-32 INDU Committee opening remarks

The following were my opening remarks to the Parliamentary Committee studying Bill C-32 made earlier today.

I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today to provide input on Bill C-32.

Before starting my remarks, I would like to give you some background about myself. I am not telling you all of these things to boast, but because I understand some have expressed concern that I have one or two clients affected by this legislation and that is the only view shaping my perspective.…

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Separating copyright fiction from facts about C-32’s TPM provisions

Earlier this week Prof. Geist wrote an opinion piece in the Toronto Star in which he purported to separate “copyright facts from fiction”. His opinion piece, Separating copyright facts from fiction, followed by another blog post this week, The False Link Between Locks and Levies, are two in a series of blog posts and opinion pieces written by him recently that purport to expose as inaccurate statements made about Bill C-32 by various individuals and organizations. See: Responding to ACTRA: Group Calls C-32 a “Disaster” and Proposes Six Part Fix; Copyright Fear Mongering Hits a New High: Writers Groups Post Their C-32 Brief; In Search of A Compromise on Copyright; EU: ACTA Digital Lock Rules Don’t Cover Access Controls.…

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Legislative Committee for C-32 selected

The legislative committe to examine C-32 will consist of the following MPs:

Conservatives: Block, Kelly, Braid, Peter, Boucher, Sylvie, Del Mastro, Dean, Lake, Mike

Liberals: McTeague, Dan (Hon.), Garneau, Marc, Rodriguez, Pablo

Bloc: Lavallée, Carole, Cardin, Serge

NDP: Angus, Charlie

The chair of the committee must still be selected by the Speaker.…

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Bill C-32’s fair dealing and other new copyright exceptions

Here are slides from the speech I gave earlier today at Osgoode Hall Law School’s professional development program on understanding Bill C-32. The speech focused on the proposed fair dealing exceptions including the new exception for education, exceptions for individuals including the UGC, format shifting, time shifting, and back-up copy exceptions, and the new exceptions for developing interoperable programs, encryption research, network security testing, and technological processes.

Sookman Osgoode C-32 Speech …

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Some observations about the debates on Bill C-32 in the House of Commons

Last week there was lots of interesting debate in the House of Commons about Bill C-32 leading up to a vote at Second Reading to refer the Bill to a legislative committee for further study.

All of the political parties agreed that copyright reform is important. They concurred with the objectives behind the Bill including the goals of creating a legal climate in which creators can both safely invest in and get paid for their content and at the same time ensure access by users to their works.…

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Bill C-32’s impacts on the IT community

Here are the slides from my speech to the 14th Annual IT.Can Conference October 28-29, 2010 in Montreal on the topic Bill C-32 – Impacts on the IT Community.

Sookman ITCAN October 2010 Slides …

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Turning up the rhetoric on C-32’s TPM provisions

As Bill C-32 approaches second reading in the House of Commons, critics of legal protection for technological measures (TPMs) are dialing up their attacks on C-32’s anti-circumvention provisions. Regrettably, many of the criticisms are based on an incorrect understanding of the Bill.

A case in point is a blog posting by Prof. Geist in which he reported on comments made by NDP MP Charlie Angus in the House of Commons on TPMs Angus Files Petition, Comments on C-32 & Digital Locks. …

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STM to Ministers Moore and Clement: C-32 will seriously prejudice rightsholders

STM, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, wrote a letter to Ministers Moore and Clement expressing their concerns with Bill C-32. The letter starts with the following introduction:

STM is making this submission to you, as STM and its members are seriously concerned about some of the provisions of Bill C-32 – the Copyright Modernization Act (“the Bill”). If enacted, these provisions would seriously prejudice STM publishing, Canadian publishers, authors and rightsholders generally. Moreover, these provisions, if enacted, would violate Canada’s international copyright obligations.

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Are the TPM provisions in C-32 more restrictive than those in the DMCA?

The US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has revised its opinion in the MGE UPS Systems Inc. v. GE Consumer and Industrial Inc. 2010 WL 3769210 (5^th.Cir. Sept. 29, 2010) case withdrawing entirely the discussion of whether a copyright violation is a prerequisite for a violation of DMCA Section 1201(a). Instead, it affirmed the dismissal of the DMCA claim solely on the lack of proof that any GE/PMI employee actually circumvented the access control TPM and because the DMCA TPM prohibitions do not apply to “using the software after some other party disabled the code requiring a” TPM.…

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