In 2011, with a majority in the House of Commons, the Conservative Party introduced Bill C-11, titled the Copyright Modernization Act.
Lobby groups objected to this with claims that it would not satisfy the Berne Convention obligations and the language was removed.
New technological developments and the emergence of computers, photocopiers and recording devices led to a recognition that copyright law needed to be updated.
Its brief was "to enquire as to whether federal legislation relating in any way to patents of invention, industrial designs, copyright and trademarks affords reasonable incentive to invention and research, to the development of literary and artistic talents, to creativeness, and to making available to the Canadian public scientific, technical, literary and artistic creations and other adaptations, applications and uses, in a manner and on terms adequately safeguarding the paramount public interest.
In 1984, the Government of Canada published "From Gutenberg to Telidon: A White Paper on Copyright" and in 1985 the House of Commons' Standing Committee on Communications and Culture published "A Charter of Rights for Creators - Report of the Subcommittee on the Revision of Copyright".
Industry Minister Jim Prentice introduced the bill to improve compliance with WIPO treaties.
It was heavily criticized and praised by conflicting sides, of being too harsh and setting up "police states", to being needed copyright reform.
[8] In April 2011, before the bill could be passed, the government lost the confidence of the House of Commons and an election was called.
Most of the opposition to the Bill from the opposition parties, in particular the NDP's opposition is about two aspects:[10] The fact that it is prohibited to circumvent digital locks even for lawful purposes and henceforth all the fair dealing[11] rights in the bill can easily be removed by the usage of such a digital lock, and the missing compensation of creators of works through a scheme similar to the one used in the past that puts a levy on recording media at the time of sale of such blank media.
The bill amended numerous other acts in order to fulfill Canada's obligations under the Canada-United-States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
It also created a new category of infringement related to the deletion or alteration of rights management information.
Copyright grants the sole and exclusive right to create and recreate a work whether wholly or substantially.
[13] The Act provides protection for all "original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic" works.
More specifically: skill, meaning the "use of one's knowledge, developed an aptitude or practiced ability in producing work", and judgment, meaning the "use of one's capacity for discernment or ability to form an opinion or evaluation by comparing different possible options in producing the work".
In Canadian Admiral Corp. v. Rediffusion, the court considered fixation: "for copyright to exists in a 'work' it must be expressed to some extent at least in some material form, capable of identification and having a more or less permanent endurance."
In this case, the court found that there was an insufficient fixation in the live broadcast of a sports event.
Some cases have shown that unstructured speech or other spontaneous or improvised creations, such as a sports game, cannot contain copyright.
[16] This has resulted in varied approaches by different organisations, where "the non-commercial licence has disappeared from the Public Works and Government Services site and it is unclear whether it remains active", and where "some departments have denied permission or asserted crown copyright to take down content".
[17] One example of Crown copyright being applied beyond the 50 year expiration mark is the 1921 design of the Arms of Canada, and its 1957 revision,[18] which "may not be reproduced, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes".
[19] The music industry created a loophole in Canadian copyright laws when it asked for a levy on blank audio media.
[22] However, Canadian courts have not extended the definition of "audio recording medium" to exempt music copied onto computer hard drives, digital audio recorders (such as iPods or MP3 players), or other types of permanently embedded memory.
In other words, the book's public domain eligibility relies on the date of death of the author who dies last.
For example, the Board will take into account whether the proposed use is commercial, whether the work's author is still living, and whether information about ownership could be found in publicly available records.
Generally, the licence will be valid only in Canada, for a specified amount of time, and involves a reasonable royalty payment (either upfront to a collective society or to an owner if one emerges).
Until June 2012, the copyright owner of an engraving, photograph or portrait was considered to be the person who ordered the work once payment was made.
[33] In addition to the civil penalties described above, Section 42(1) of the Copyright Act sets out a number of criminal offences.
These primarily deal with infringement that involves sale or rental of copyrighted materials, and can result in fines of up to $1,000,000 or prison sentences of up to 2 years for indictment.
In these cases, such copies can be detained, and eventually destroyed or handed over to the copyright holder, at the discretion of the court.