[ Thanks to Barbara I.
Irwin for this link. ]
“This afternoon, the government introduced the
Copyright Modernization Act (or Bill C-32), the long-awaited
copyright reform bill [the bill is not yet online, but I attended
the media lockup in Montreal]. It is nearly two years since C-61
was introduced and nearly a year since the national copyright
consultation, yet discouragingly some things have not changed. As I
reported several weeks ago, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore
won the internal fight over Industry Minister Tony Clement for a
repeat of C-61’s digital lock provisions and against a flexible
fair dealing approach and today’s bill reflects those policy
victories.“However, over the past month, Clement made steady in-roads in
trying to restore some balance in the bill and achieved some wins.
The bill contains some important extensions of fair dealing,
including new exceptions for parody, satire, and (most notably)
education. It also contains more sensible time shifting and format
shifting provisions that still feature restrictions (they do not
apply where there is a digital lock) but are more technology
neutral than the C-61 model.”