Canadian High Court Rules on Copyright

An Anonymous Coward writes "Hi, Found this at: www.politechbot.com. Here is the intro from http://www.politechbot.com/p-03414.html: "Your readers may be interested in a landmark Canadian Supreme Court decision that explicitly addresses the question of copyright and balance. In a 4-3 split, the majority notes that the proper balance lies not only in recognizing creator's rights but also giving appropriate weight to their limited nature. Moreover, the majority argues that "excessive control by holders of copyrights and other forms of intellectual property may unduly limit the ability of the public domain to incorporate and embellish creative innovation in the long-term interests of society as a whole, or create practical obstacles to proper utilization."" In short: "Once an authorized copy of a work is sold to a member of the public, it is generally for the purchaser, not the author, to determine what happens to it.""

Comments

Re:Canada

[ignatzMouse]

It's all up in the air until the Supreme Court rules on Eldred v. Ashcroft.

Re:Protection illegal?

[repoleved]

in Canada (and maybe other states)

Canada is not a state. Just so that you know.

It's a totally separate country, with its own currency, its own central bank, its own federal government, etc.

And Canada's provinces are not states either. A lot of people don't seem to know this, if we are to judge from web submission forms...

Canada is no Panacea...

[repoleved]

Premiers (these are the people who "represent" the constituents of individual provinces) can do a lot of damage...

For example, in B.C. everything has been going downhill since the last guy was elected. What a huge mistake electing him was. What did he do?

1. cut university funding
2. closed hospitals
3. raised taxes
4. created a 4 month long bus strike, which required taxpayers to use alternative (less efficient) transportation, costing each one 1000's of dollars. The net result was a system that was no better than before.

It seems like the appointed judiciary is doing better than the elected "representative", at least so far as British Columbia is concerned.

Summary of case

[fava]

Following is a slightly edited summary of the details of the case taken from the actual judgement:

The respondent, a painter who enjoys a well-established international reputation, assigned by contract the right to publish reproductions, cards and other stationery products representing certain of his works to a publisher. The appellant art galleries purchased cards, photolithographs and posters embodying various of the artist's works from the publisher, and then transferred the image to canvas. The process in issue here involves lifting the ink that was used in printing a paper poster and transferring it onto a canvas. Since this process leaves the poster blank, there is no increase in the total number of reproductions. The respondent applied for an injunction, accounting, and damages against the appellants in the Quebec Superior Court. He also obtained a writ of seizure before judgment,

[Boring bits removed]

The appellants applied to have the seizure quashed. The [Quebec] Superior Court concluded that transferring an authorized paper reproduction onto canvas did not amount to infringement within the meaning of the C[opyright] A[ct], and ordered that the seizure be quashed. The [Quebec] Court of Appeal, finding that there had been infringement, set aside that decision and uphold the seizure before judgment with respect to the canvas-backed reproductions.

[More boring bits removed]

Whether a fuller record adduced at trial will demonstrate a breach of economic rights or moral rights will be for the trial judge to determine. At this stage, we [the Canadian Supreme Court] need to decide only that the interlocutory record did not justify the seizure before judgment.

IANAL but it may be that the ruling is not as broad as I (and the slashdot commumity) might like.