Cheryl Hamilton’s Now it is Personal: Copyright Issues in Canada looks at and discusses issues pertaining to copyright – a contentious topic – in Canada. Copyright means the right to copy, which is governed by the Copyright Act. She argues for a need for balance in the interpretation of the Copyright Act. She suggests that as Canadian copyright becomes personal—as it is so closely connected with how we communicate—we should look to the courts, rather than to Parliament for support. In her opinion, the parliament supports an approach to copyright that sees legislation as a regime of rights for owners to be used in restricting the activities of users and punishing them for unauthorized use. She also suggests that if Parliament succeeds in amending the Copyright Act to furthermore reflect the interests of copyright owners, then the internet will become a site almost exclusively of commerce, rather than function as a site with many forms of exchange. Therefore, she believes that rather than simply serving the interests of copyright owners, the Copyright Act should also protect the rights of end users.
To start off, Hamilton discusses how copyrights have emerged as a key site of cultural contestation in Canada. She asserts that how Canadians communicate is increasingly structured, regulated, managed, and shaped by our myriad encounters with copyright law (290). Copyright has emerged in Canada and around the world as a place for debates about digital technologies, creators’ rights, theft and piracy, the public interest, global information economies, access to information, and privacy rights (290). Copyright is a global topic—individuals are increasingly aware that copyright matters. Hamilton notes that “intellectual property issues, particularly those around copyright, form a part of our communicative consciousness more than perhaps at any other point in our history” (291).However, Hamilton reminds us that issues pertaining to copyright are not new to the Internet era.
Hamilton then addresses the renewed energy around and interest in copyright, which has emerged at the intersection of many competing socio-cultural forces to cause intellectual property a field of uncertainty and fluidity (293). A person violates copyrights by doing anything that the copyright owner has the sole and exclusive right to do. More and more, what used to be thought of as shared cultural resources, or as unownable, such as words and names is being accepted as personal property which can be owned, bought, sold, and licensed in this global marketplace (293). With the processes of propertization, intellectual property law has been expanded in scope and extended in time in order to accommodate new forms of property, increase terms of protection, and support new techniques to prevent violation (294). Through the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization, a more effective copyright framework (from the perspective of copyright owners) has been embraced as a shared value at the global level. As a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Canada’s ongoing reform copyright process is a response to its participation in this global milieu of legislation and reciprocity of enforcement that is trying to control the disorderly nature of digital communication. The continued development of digital technology is also reinvigorating interest in copyright issues such as personal property and intellectual property. Currently, individuals, media industries, regulators, governments and courts are trying to sort out the flux in this field.
Also, Hamilton examines the burst of energy in the copyright regulatory arena in Canada. She argues that the copyright terrain is being defined by two forces pushing in opposite directions: first, the copyright reform process in Canada moving towards a system privileging owners, and second, a series of recent court decisions that combine to restate a balance between creators/owners and the public interest, going so far as to recognize users as having rights in the copyright system (295). The copyright regime in Canada is currently undergoing a lengthy and complex review process as policy makers struggle to adapt the principles and provisions of the legislation to reflect the existing global reality. The article discusses the various recommendations, reports, and bills that that try to amend and improve the Copyright Act. The copyright reform processes are advocating and pushing for the rights of copyright owners; the state of Canada wants to create a system to manage and protect the rights of copyright owners in the digital context. On the other hand, courts in Canada have endorsed the idea of public interest within the legislation and the express rights on the part of individual users. Hamilton looks at three cases where copyright infringements were deemed to have taken place by the owners of the copyrighted materials. These cases suggest that the courts are actively shaping the context of interpretation of any eventual legislation. These court cases show that people are at the heart of the activities of copyright and that they have rights that need to be respected and protected.
Reflection:
Although, compared to other countries, piracy is low in Canada but when it comes to multimedia content such as music and movies, I see lots of copyright violations taking place around me. The Copyright Act grants to copyright owners the sole and exclusive right to reproduce, perform or publish a work. If a person reproduces, performs, or publishes a work without the copyright owner’s consent, he/she is breaching the Copyright Act. This leads me to think about the numerous video clips on YouTube – are these music videos and movie clips that people have uploaded onto YouTube illegal and an infringement on copyrighted materials? Technically, these video clips violate copyright laws but if they are really illegal, why are thousands of people still uploading these copyrighted materials on YouTube? Also, as previously mentioned in class, fans tend to create new storylines or change existing storylines among other activities. Are they violating copyrights or are their actions permissible because they are a ‘fan’.
As a student, I constantly witness people upload and/or download music from the internet. According to copyright rules, downloading music for personal use is not necessarily illegal but uploading files to the internet is illegal. The younger generation tends not to care about copyright violation when it comes to multimedia content (music, movies, etc). With the relative ease of accessing free music and movies online, personal interests to enjoy these free entertainments come before the interest to protect copyrighted materials. I speculate that issues pertaining to copyright will remain in a state of flux for quite a bit more time in the future.
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