The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled against a publishers' copyright group to allow the Law Society of Canada to make limited copies of legal texts and decisions for members' research.
The decision is expected to affect the strategies of many industries seeking to protect intellectual property, including publishing, music and entertainment providers.
Many of these are currently lobbying Ottawa to toughen up Canada's copyright laws, and other industries are contesting the levies currently imposed on compact discs to compensate the recording industry for music piracy over the Internet.
Specifically, the court's decision Thursday overturned an earlier ruling in favour of Access Copyright, a copyright-watchdog organization representing the Canadian Publishers' Council and Association of Canadian Publishers, and others in the publishing industry. The group accused the Law Society of Upper Canada of committing copyright infringement since 1993 by providing copying machines and services to its members.
"The Supreme Court sent a strong message that people do not have a free reign to copy whatever they please," Access Copyright executive director Fred Wardle said in a statement. "The ruling was clear that there is a difference between fair dealing and copying for other purposes and we will continue to ensure that rights holders are compensated when their works are used for the latter."
Much of recent copyright litigation has been the result of emerging technologies, which have made mass infringement of copyright possible.
The decision has clarified some of the roles of technologies in copyright matters, said Ottawa copyright lawyer Howard Knopf. It helps define what it means to communicate to the public, stating that sending a single fax to a single individual is not a communication to the public.
More specifically, Mr. Knopf said, "The court will presume that merely providing equipment or authorizing the use of equipment that could be used for infringement does not amount to infringement — and that even if there is infringement, a defendant will not be liable if it lacks sufficient control over the activity."
Mr. Knopf added that the ruling on communication and providing equipment that could be used for infringement of copyright "could have a real impact on some pending litigation involving the Internet."
But fundamental principles of copyright remain, said Access Copyright lawyer Roanie Levy. "This ruling does not change the fact that most copying of copyright protected works does not fall under fair dealing. The Supreme Court stated definitively that copyright does exist in original works.
In its ruling, the court said that "The Law Society does not infringe copyright when a single copy of a reported decision, case summary, statute, regulation or limited selection of text from a treatise is made by the Great Library in accordance with its access policy. Moreover, the Law Society does not authorize copyright infringement by maintaining a photocopier in the Great Library and posting a notice warning that it will not be responsible for any copies made in infringement of copyright."
The court also said that the Law Society "did not authorize copyright infringement by providing self-service photocopiers for use by its patrons in the Great Library. While authorization can be inferred from acts that are less than direct and positive, a person does not authorize infringement by authorizing the mere use of equipment that could be used to infringe copyright."
Significantly, the court ruled that under the Copyright Act, "fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study does not infringe copyright."
Research, the judges ruled, "must be given a large and liberal interpretation in order to ensure that users' rights are not unduly constrained, and is not limited to non-commercial or private contexts."
"Canada's law on fair dealing for research purposes has moved much closer to the American concept of weighing and examining various factors," Mr. Knopf said. "Commercial research can be 'fair,' and fair dealing may even encompass the whole of a work in some cases."
