Copyright Consultations Submission

This submission details reforms that the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) believes are necessary to balance fairly the interests of copyright holders and users of copyrighted materials so as both to encourage creation by ensuring payment for use and to safeguard equitable public access to and use of ideas. New copyright legislation must not restrict fair dealing. It must not make it illegal to circumvent a digital lock to use a copyrighted item for purposes that do not infringe copyright (doing so is not required by Canada‘s treaty obligations) or to convert a work into any format that is usable for a person with a disability. Further, it must also not make it illegal for a library to maintain long-term accessibility to materials by migrating them to new formats or to deliver to the end-user a digital copy of a print document. In addition, there should be a good faith defence from statutory damages for copyright infringement, a ―notice and notice‖ rather than a ―notice and takedown‖ system should be implemented for internet service providers, and a reformed Act should prohibit ‘standard form’ contracts from usurping rights granted under the Act, while a statement clarifying the permissibility of using Internet sources for educational use, without circumscribing a user‘s fair dealing rights, should be added