What are Copyright Reform and Bill C-60?

Bill C-60 was the government's last attempt to significantly change Canadian copyright law -- a.k.a. "copyright reform" -- and it would have had broad implications for Canadian society. The government suggested that Canadians needed Bill C-60 to "modernize" Canadian copyright law to reflect the realities of digital technology like the Internet. In truth, the current Copyright Act has served Canadian content industries very well. If anything, Parliament should be addressing copyright's failure to serve the needs and interests of ordinary Canadians. In the end, Bill C-60 would have created a host of new rights for copyright holders and eliminates corresponding rights that Canadian users of copyrighted material enjoy today. Bill C-60 expired when the Liberal government collapsed in 2005, but its principles will return under a different bill number in 2006.

ORC is focused on three aspects of copyright reform as expressed in Bill C-60:

1. Fixing the bad stuff

   In the spirit of promoting copyright law for Canadians, ORC has identified several sections of Bill C-60 that could use a rewrite in the next Parliament:

   Section 29: Access to Information, Freedom from Censorship, and Privacy
   That sounds like a tall order, but those issues are all tied up in how Bill C-60 deals with liability for "intermediaries" like Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and search tools. Copyright holders often target these entities when prosecuting infringement claims, and laws that are unclear or provide inadequate protection can turn intermediaries into the weak link for consumer rights. Click for more.

   Section 18: Education and the Internet
   Bill C-60 contained well-intentioned clauses about distance learning and digital interlibrary loan, but they were practically unworkable. By introducing substantial - and in some cases silly - administrative burdens, the law would have actually make it harder to take advantage of digital technology in the classroom. Canada needs stronger exceptions for schools and libraries to fully harness the educational power of the Internet. Click for more.

   Section 21: Who Owns Your Family Photos?
   Bill C-60 purported to "harmonize" photographers' rights with those of other authors under the Copyright Act. In reality, Bill C-60 would have stripped Canadians of their copyright in commissioned photographs and portraits. Canadian copyright law has historically protected consumers by giving them copyright in commissioned photographs, such as wedding photos and baby pictures. Bill C-60 would have changed those rules to the detriment of consumers. Click for more.

2. Protecting the good stuff

   Bill C-60 sprang partly from the need to implement Canada's international treaty obligations, and it proposed to do so in a comparatively humane way. In the United States, for example, entertainment companies succeeded in turning those same treaties into a law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) - an unambiguous disaster for American citizens. But American entertainment companies like it, and they're lobbying the Canadian government to make our copyright reform legislation more like the DMCA. Specifically, they want to make it illegal to circumvent "technical protection measures" on copyrighted material for any reason, and to implement a regime that forces Internet service providers (ISPs) to censor their subscribers based merely on allegations of copyright infringement. That's not the law in Canada today, and it wouldn't be the law if C-60 had passed. Canada needs its own DMCA like it needs an outbreak of mad cow disease, and that's why we're fighting attempts to expand Canadian copyright reform in this direction.

3. Adding something for average Canadians (i.e. those of us who don't own CD factories)

   Canadian governments exhibit a predictable pattern of behaviour in copyright revision: the government of the day continuously promises attention to user issues in the "next round" of revision, only to ignore those issues in favour of granting more, stronger and longer rights to copyright holders. Bill C-60 continued this pattern. What was Bill C-60 missing? Click here for a large and growing list of user issues that were notably absent in Bill C-60.