ARCHIVED — A National Research Council (NRC)

COPYRIGHT REFORM PROCESS

REPY COMMENTS

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Documents received have been posted in the official language in which they were submitted. All are posted as received by the departments, however all address information has been removed.

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Reply comment from the National Research Council (NRC) received on October 23, 2001 via e-mail

Subject: Reply comments on Submission Papers on Digital Copyright Conslutation Document

PDF Version

CONSULTATION PAPER ON DIGITAL COPYRIGHT ISSUES


REPLY COMMENTS FROM THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL


The National Research Council (NRC) welcomes this opportunity to respond to the submissions posted to date. In view of the stated intention of the departments to proceed only with issues discussed in the consultation papers, we refrain from commenting at this point on other matters advanced in some of the submissions.


Making available

NRC agrees that there is merit in clarifying the “making available” right in respect of authors, but is content to accept the departments’ initial position on this matter. We note that the Canadian Association of Law Librarians (CALL), the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA) and the Canadian School Boards Association (CSBA) take a similar perspective.

Proposals to equate “communication to the public” with “publication” require detailed analysis, would seem to lack consensus, and should not be pursued at this stage.


Legal protection of technological measures

These measures need to be broadly similar in all countries, as infringement may otherwise occur in jurisdictions having the lowest level of protection. It is not in our view appropriate that Canada should be in that category. This does not, however, preclude the departments from taking account of specific concerns that were identified in other submissions. The Canadian Publishers Council (CPC, while strongly endorsing a high level of protection as a prerequisite for publisher willingness to utilize the internet, also acknowledged the need for these measures to be “calibrated in their design” so that lawful access and use are not penalized.

The international nature of electronic distribution that is cited in some submissions as a reason not to include terms and conditions of use as legislatively protected rights management information (see below) is at the same time a compelling argument in favour of strong technological measures.


Legal protection of rights management information

The scope and integrity of rights management information (RMI) must be rooted in objective standards. The legal validity of RMI is a function of the justice system, and not the Copyright Act. Terms and conditions of use may be integral to rights management. While their validity in any given jurisdiction is a matter of local law, assumed invalidity does not justify removal.

Some legitimate privacy issues have been raised in some of the submissions. These are more germane to e-commerce generally than to copyright, and should be pursued in that broader context.


Liability of network intermediaries

NRC is broadly in agreement with the positions taken by the Association of Universities & Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL). We note that some of the publisher associations, and also the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (CANCOPY), support a high level of intermediary liability, and that these and other submissions seek to link liability and collective licensing. This is inconsistent with how this issue has been resolved in other jurisdictions. The NRC is a strong proponent of international symmetry in this copyright amendment process.


If the departments decide to broaden the scope of their review, NRC may wish to comment further on these and also on other matters at a later date.

We look forward to active participation in the roundtable consultations when these are eventually scheduled.