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Canadian High Court Rules on Copyright 38

Posted by Hemos from the checking-the-balances dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes "Hi, Found this at: www.politechbot.com. Here is the intro from http://www.politechbot.com/p-03414.html: "Your readers may be interested in a landmark Canadian Supreme Court decision that explicitly addresses the question of copyright and balance. In a 4-3 split, the majority notes that the proper balance lies not only in recognizing creator's rights but also giving appropriate weight to their limited nature. Moreover, the majority argues that "excessive control by holders of copyrights and other forms of intellectual property may unduly limit the ability of the public domain to incorporate and embellish creative innovation in the long-term interests of society as a whole, or create practical obstacles to proper utilization."" In short: "Once an authorized copy of a work is sold to a member of the public, it is generally for the purchaser, not the author, to determine what happens to it.""
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Canadian High Court Rules on Copyright More

Canadian High Court Rules on Copyright

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  • Canada (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dead Penis Bird ( 524912 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @08:27AM (#3400815) Homepage
    but also giving appropriate weight to their limited nature.

    The limited nature of copyright is already in our Constitution (Article I, Section 8) [cornell.edu]. Why can't the United States follow their original rules, while Canada ensures such fairness "on the fly". Is it because their lawmakers are less likely to be bought?

    Sometimes I don't understand why we bash Canada at all.

    • Re:Canada (Score:2, Informative)

      by ignatzMouse ( 447031 )
      It's all up in the air until the Supreme Court rules on Eldred v. Ashcroft [harvard.edu].

    • Re:Canada (Score:4, Insightful)

      by billcopc ( 196330 ) <vrillco@yahoo.com> on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @09:46AM (#3401195) Homepage
      Our lawmakers aren't less likely to be bought. They're just have more important cows to milk right now. Besides, I find our MP's have always sustained a more passive stance than their US counterparts. I guess their thinking goes along the lines of "If we just sit around and try not break anything, the citizens won't hate us so much" compared to the states' mentality of "Legislate now! We'll fix things later if enough people get killed over this."

      It seems like the US Government runs the place like a cutthroat business, which would explain the financial superiority. Of course in any business where the common practice is to screw the customer, your reputation and service quality are nil. Sometimes it's better to spend an extra buck and invest an extra hour to keep the people happy.
      • Well I don't think that its because of any dislike of legleslation that our lawmakers don't make more laws, i think its that they would like to fight among themselves and worry about the next election rather than make landmark rulings about dry stuff like copyright.
      • MPs in Canada have backed specific big-business requests (like farm subsidies) but not others (like Bay street). That may change as Toronto becomes more and more of a "Holliwood north".

  • Well, actually it was not a copy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by software_non_olet ( 567318 ) <software@non.olet.de> on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @08:40AM (#3400884)

    Hence it's not applicable to computer software or music.

    "The process in issue here involves lifting the ink that was used in printing a paper poster and transferring it onto a canvas. Since this process leaves the poster blank, there is no increase in the total number of reproductions."

    It's more like you bought a CD and then make a christmas tree decoration out of it. Thinking about what to do with your old Windows CDs? Well here's a safe way to do with them as you please, without breaing copyright law (at least in Canada). .o)

  • Brave decision.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gus goose ( 306978 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @08:43AM (#3400901) Journal
    It warms my heart to know that sometimes a good decision is made by people looking further into the future than just the next payback, election, or bribe.

    This decision will cause a number of repurcussions with our so-called friendly neighbor the Americans.

    For the last number of years the American policy toward Canada has been degrading (from the Canadian perspective). No longer are we friends, but associates. We are now enemies in lumber wars, victims in real wars, and we are treated with suspicion in all things terrorist related. We used to have the world's longest unguarded border, but that is history.

    It is a shame that we no longer see eye-to-eye, but America's general trend toward a more managed society and a more selfish government has inevitably conflicted with Canada's movements toward more freedoms.

    For us this is a good thing because we will gain advantages over the americans in the grand scheme, especially in terms of freedom to innovate.

    I only hope that Canada makes more decisions which open up further opportunities. Let's face it, a business would be able to operate easier from Canada than the US (from a government red-tape perspective), especially in an international market.

    gus
    • True that, I've always felt that labor wages arn't the main factor in manufacturues leaving this company. Taxes, labor laws (I'm not talking about the nesessary laws either, the average buisness spends as much as they pay in wages as they do on workers comp, social security (they have to pay part of it) and taxes that they have to pay on money that is going to saleries.), enviromental laws, lawsuits, you name it.
    • lets not delude ourselves, we really live in a dictatorship that we get to choose who our dictator is every 4 years. freedom of expression and speech are not rights that we are entitled to just because we are alive, we get these things becuase our leaders genuinely care about our happiness (most of the time). real criminals are the ones who abuse the freedoms that the gov't has decided to grant us as citizens. These people are the ones who ruin the good things that gov't has given to the rest of us. However its foolish to believe that if there were no bad people in the world then there would be no problems, life isn't like startrek. as long as there are laws that protect people there will be people who will try and break those laws. its good that the supreme court has decided to uphold the consumer in this ruling, too much favoritism towards the artists and associations that (help?) them.

  • Too Enlightened for U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @08:47AM (#3400926) Homepage Journal

    The court's verdict sounds as if it's too logical, properly considering the long term benefits and drawbacks to society from copyright.

    I doubt we could expect anything so enlightened in the United States.

    The "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" clause in our Declaration of Independence was almost "life, liberty and property". Sentiment for the importance of "property" rights is strong. Probably slavery in the U.S. would have been abolished a lot sooner had abolition not directly confronted "property" rights of slaveowners.

  • So might this mean that Copyright "protection" mechanisms (those which DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent in the USA) might be ruled illegal in Canada (and maybe other states)?
    • Make that protection mechanisms which prevent fair use.
    • in Canada (and maybe other states)

      Canada is not a state. Just so that you know.

      It's a totally separate country, with its own currency, its own central bank, its own federal government, etc.

      And Canada's provinces are not states either. A lot of people don't seem to know this, if we are to judge from web submission forms...
      • Canada is not a state. Just so that you know.

        So what does the term "nation state" mean?

        And Canada's provinces are not states either. A lot of people don't seem to know this, if we are to judge from web submission forms...

        Tell me about it! And neither are the UK's counties.

        And a postal code does NOT have to be a 5-digit number.

        And "colour" contains a U. As does "favourite". And "realise" doesn't contain a 'z', which by the way is pronounced "zed", not "zee". And...

        Wait, I live in America now. Sorry. Take all those statements and reverse them ;)

      • The definition of State is country. I live in the United States, that is a bunch of countries that agreed to work togather. Today it doesn't look that way, but the early history of my country shows that the States really did at like individual countries. They soon realised that war with each other (which did happen), and a non-common currency were hurting them, so they agreed to work togather.

        • bluGill Said: The definition of State is country.

          OK, you're right. I finally found it in the third entry of WordNet (r) 1.6, although a bunch of other dictionaries didn't carry this meaning at all...

          3: a politically organized body of people under a single government; "the state has elected a new president" [syn: nation, country, land, commonwealth, res publica, body politic]
  • It seems to me, that one of the main reasons why the "users" rights were upheld in this case was that a reproduction of the painting was not made. The contents were literally moved from the poster to canvas, leaving a blank piece of paper behind.

    Iaamoac

  • Premiers (these are the people who "represent" the constituents of individual provinces) can do a lot of damage...

    For example, in B.C. everything has been going downhill since the last guy was elected. What a huge mistake electing him was. What did he do?
    1. cut university funding
    2. closed hospitals
    3. raised taxes
    4. created a 4 month long bus strike, which required taxpayers to use alternative (less efficient) transportation, costing each one 1000's of dollars. The net result was a system that was no better than before.

    It seems like the appointed judiciary is doing better than the elected "representative", at least so far as British Columbia is concerned.

    • shut your hole you socialist bastard. The raising taxes is a stupid liberal syle move. The other thing were necisary and you will have to deal with them.
    • Can I point out that Unions create strikes? If the Union doesn't want to be on strike, they can go back to work.

  • Summary of case (Score:2, Informative)

    by fava ( 513118 )
    Following is a slightly edited summary of the details of the case taken from the actual judgement:
    The respondent, a painter who enjoys a well-established international reputation, assigned by contract the right to publish reproductions, cards and other stationery products representing certain of his works to a publisher. The appellant art galleries purchased cards, photolithographs and posters embodying various of the artist's works from the publisher, and then transferred the image to canvas. The process in issue here involves lifting the ink that was used in printing a paper poster and transferring it onto a canvas. Since this process leaves the poster blank, there is no increase in the total number of reproductions. The respondent applied for an injunction, accounting, and damages against the appellants in the Quebec Superior Court. He also obtained a writ of seizure before judgment,

    [Boring bits removed]

    The appellants applied to have the seizure quashed. The [Quebec] Superior Court concluded that transferring an authorized paper reproduction onto canvas did not amount to infringement within the meaning of the C[opyright] A[ct], and ordered that the seizure be quashed. The [Quebec] Court of Appeal, finding that there had been infringement, set aside that decision and uphold the seizure before judgment with respect to the canvas-backed reproductions.

    [More boring bits removed]

    Whether a fuller record adduced at trial will demonstrate a breach of economic rights or moral rights will be for the trial judge to determine. At this stage, we [the Canadian Supreme Court] need to decide only that the interlocutory record did not justify the seizure before judgment.

    IANAL but it may be that the ruling is not as broad as I (and the slashdot commumity) might like.

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