Assessing Economic Impacts of Copyright Reform on Selected users and Consumers

VII. Final Remarks

This report has considered how extension of the term of protection to life of the author plus seventy years would affect incentives to create and disseminate works in Canada. It has examined how extension affects the external balance of copyright payments, and whether there are arguments that favor of harmonization of the term of protection in Canada with the term granted in other countries.

The report finds that a twenty-year extension would have an insignificant effect on creative effort. Because Canada is a net importer copyrighted material, there may be a minor adverse effect on the external balance of royalty flows. It also finds that the case for harmonizing the protection term with the term prevailing in countries that are Canada's major trading partners is weak at best.

Adoption of a rule under which the term of protection of photographs belonging to corporations not owned by photographers equals life of author plus fifty years should not entail significant additional transaction costs for users. The report also concludes that extending the term for makers of sound recordings does not justify granting the same extension to performances in these recordings.

With respect to rights management information it is difficult to make the case that libraries museums and archives should be given wide-ranging exemptions from anti-tampering provisions. This conclusion holds equally for information concerning stakeholders and information on conditions of use. However, it is reasonable to make an exception for the manipulation of the codes that interfere with the functions of LAMs such as cataloguing. Also, very little protection, if any, should be given to tracking information.

The report supports the formation of specialized organizations that provide keys to works and are empowered to manipula te rights management information.

Finally, the report concludes that remedies against tampering should track the remedies that apply to infringements and that administrative monetary penalties should be considered as a remedy against the non-commercial dissemination of material that contains RMI that has been tampered with.