wisdom from the north
Thanks to Michael Geist for alerting me to this: There's an extraordinary decision (unanimous) by the Canadian Supreme Court that all looking for balance in this "war" should read: LSUC v. CCH. As Michael summarizes it: "the court now appears to be considering all copyright law interpretation through the lens of balancing user rights with creators rights."
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Comments (6)
I would love to see a non-legalese explanation of this.
"Photocopiers don't infringe people; people infringe people."
I don't know if this qualifies as your "non-legalese explanation", but I've been following Canadian copyright law for a while now and have written some comments in my Web log. You might also be amused by a quiz I wrote: Which Canadian Supreme Court Justice are You?
I don't have time to read right through the judicial reasons at the moment but it appears the judges have approached this case with very open minds. The factors for determining 'fair dealing' are particularly noteworthy. In the wake of the FTA and the recent Kazaa controversy let's hope the courts in my native Australia are as enlightened.
Here is a short resume I made of the case, with short opinions :
1) Originality: is more than mecanical operations : a case summary is therefore copyrightable, but not structured case information like copied docket numbers, dates, etc. in standard headers built from editors.
[opinion] This is strong, does not protect the "form of expression" of facts the publisher uses. Court pretends it's a plain mecanical operation. [/opinion]
2) Fair dealing: the lawyer requesting a document is doing research, therefore considered to do "fair dealing".
[opinion] Looks like rule of law came in. Lawyers will always be doing fair dealing while accessing cases for their affairs. [/opinion]
3) Photocopiers: has to be considered legitimate/legal in the first place. Furthermore, warning regarding non-responsibility [of library] reminds/pushes users to respect copyright laws. Proof has to be made of illegitimate/illegal use.
[opinion] I think this is just plain right. [/opinion]
4) Copyright law : balancing user rights with creators rights. This follows the ideas in the Feist case.
[opinion] Very well balanced in this case, afaik. We have to note that there are things that are said to be protected, explicitely, and quite well defined. [/opinion]
5) Transmission of documents to the public : selective transmission via fax, through the evaluation of legitimity of the librarian, is not transmission to the public.
[opinion] I woudln't have known what to think here if it wouldn't be of the "evaluation of legitimity (of transmission of documents) of the librarians. It makes it clear, and gives a warning to the librarians. [/opinion]
This isn't the first time the SCC has ruled in favour of balancing copyright holders rights, that overcompensating artists is as self defeating as undercompensating them. See Théberge v. Galerie d'Art du Petit Champlain inc., namely paragraphs 31 and 32.
The Théberge case wasn't a unanimous decision though and I'm happy to find that they've reiterated the importance of limiting copyright holders' rights.