Creative industries band together with statement on copyright opposing "fair use"

Some 45 organizations in Canada representing the creative industries have submitted a joint statement to the current federal consultation process on copyright reform, asking the government not to implement the concept of "fair use". The stance, not surprisingly, runs counter to the position taken by many of the advocates of fair use.

The signatories include such magazine-related organizations as Magazines Canada, the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) and Société de développement des périodiques culturels québécois (SODEP), Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency and the Canadian Freelance Union. Other organizations represent the book, music and games industries.

The paper essentially asks for a continuation of the longstanding "fair dealing" provisions now included in the Copyright Act and asks that the government reject calls for changing this to "fair use" or an "expanded" fair dealing definition that would create an open-ended system leaving copyright holders guessing about the junction between their right to be compensated for their work and the right of users to download, copy or sample the work without payment.

"'Fair use' has been described as an 'astonishingly bad' system amounting to little more than 'the right to hire a lawyer' [said the statement] "Fair use and/or expanded fair dealing systems are models that many of our trading partners including the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand have expressly rejected."

Fair use would lead to uncertainty, increased litigation, and reduce revenue available to creators and the Canadian creative industries, the submission said. It would also make collective licensing more difficult, if not impossible, as practiced by more than three dozen organizations in Canada (for instance, royalties charged by music publishers or for photocopying of printed works). And it could possibly invalidate current levies on media and photocopying that are imposed to pay royalties to Canadian copyright holders.