private copying Archives

Private copying levy on death row

The Copyright Board of Canada rendered its decision on Friday with regards to the Tariff of Levies to Be Collected by CPCC in 2012, 2013 and 2014 on the sale of Blank Audio Recording Media. The decision is notable in a number of respects, most importantly because it portends the end of the levy based private copying regime for music and the beginning of the levy free format shifting regime ushered in with Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act.

The Board decision certified a tariff for years 2012-2014 on eligible blank recording media which largely consist of the aging CD-R, CD-RW, CD-R Audio, and CD-RW Audio formats.…

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UK proposals to modernize UK Copyright Act released

The UK Government outlined plans earlier today to support economic growth by modernising the UK’s intellectual property laws. The Government accepted a number of recommendations made by Professor Ian Hargreaves in his report, Digital Opportunity: A review of intellectual property and growth in its response to Professor Hargreaves’ Review of Intellectual Property and Growth. The Government’s response can be found online at www.ipo.gov.uk/ipresponse.

The UK Government also simultaneously published a series of other reports including: Next steps for implementation of the Digital Economy Act, “Site blocking” to reduce online copyright infringement, Draft-Sharing-of-Costs statutory-instrument, Impact Assessment for the Sharing of Costs Statutory Instrument, Digital Economy Act Appeals Process: Options for reducing costs, International Strategy, and IP Crime Strategy.…

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An FAQ on TPMs, Copyright and Bill C-32

This blog post is based on a transcription of the talk I gave last week at the Insight Conference on Rights and Copyright: Bringing Canada into the 21st Century. * I was on a panel with Michael Geist in which we both presented on the topic of “Bill C-32: Legal Protection for TPMs”. The slides I used with my presentation have already been posted here. For convenience they are also at the end of my remarks.

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Welcome. I hope everyone is having a good day so far.…

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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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