The amendment of the Canadian Copyright Act, which has
been more than a decade in the making, has finally reached a
decisive conclusion. After being passed by the House of Commons
with 158 votes on June 18, followed by a whirlwind trip through the
Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, Bill
C-11, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act (also referred to
as the Copyright Modernization Act) passed by the Senate
without amendment on June 29. The Bill received Royal Assent the
same day. It will come into force on a date to be set by an order
of the Governor in Council, which is expected to be sometime this
fall.
The passage of Bill C-11 is an important milestone in a process
intended to bring Canada's Copyright Act, which has
not been significantly updated since 1997, into compliance with
international standards and treaties. Among other things, the Bill
introduces a "making available" right for works,
performances and sound recordings, new remedies against services
that enable online copyright infringement online, and new
prohibitions on the circumvention of technological protection
measures. It also expands the existing fair dealing exception to
include parody, satire and education and creates new exceptions for
uses ranging from reproduction for private purposes to the
non-commercial creation and dissemination of user-generated
content.
To view our previously written e-LERT on Copyright Act, please click here.
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