Source: http://www.barrysookman.com/2012/07/12/the-supreme-court-rules-on-copyright/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 01:10:33+00:00

Document:
In summary the Supreme Court allowed the appeals in ESA v. SOCAN (in a 5 to 4 split) and Access Copyright (also in a 5 to 4 split); dismissed the appeals in SOCAN v. Bell and Re:Sound; and allowed in part and dismissed in part the Rogers v. SOCAN appeal.
The decisions of the Court, which will take a while to digest, cover a lot of ground. Here is a summary of some of the key legal principles canvassed by the Court. Others have focused on summarizing the specific findings of the Court in each of the cases. Some of the summaries can be found here, here, here, and here.
The Court re-affirmed or re-emphasized a number of legal principles to be used in construing the Act.
The Act reflects a balance in copyright between promoting the public interest in the encouragement and dissemination of works and obtaining a just reward for the creator.
This principle was first articulated in Théberge v. Galerie d’Art du Petit Champlain inc.,  2 S.C.R. 336. The Court referred to this principle in ESA v. SOCAN where the Court went on to say that the “traditional balance between authors and users should be preserved in the digital environment”. It also re-iterated this principle in Rogers v. SOCAN[ii]. In SOCAN v. Bell the Court went on to note that “both protection and access must be sensitively balanced in order to achieve the goals of copyright”.
The Act should be construed in a technologically neutral manner.
The Act should be interpreted to extend to technologies that were not or could not have been contemplated at the time of its drafting. It exists to protect the rights of authors and others as technology evolves[iii].
The rights in the introductory paragraph of Section 3(1) of the Act provide the basic structure of copyright. The enumerated rights listed in the subsequent subparagraphs are simply illustrative.
Nor is the communication right in s. 3(1)(f) a sui generis right in addition to the general rights described in s. 3(1). The introductory paragraph defines what constitutes “copyright”. It states that copyright “means” the sole right to produce or reproduce a work in any material form, to perform a work in public, or to publish an unpublished work. This definition of “copyright” is exhaustive, as the term “means” confines its scope. The paragraph concludes by stating that copyright “includes” several other rights, set out in subsections (a) through (i). As a result, the rights in the introductory paragraph provide the basic structure of copyright. The enumerated rights listed in the subsequent subparagraphs are simply illustrative.
In ESA v. SOCAN, the Court ruled that a download of a video game was not a “communication” within the meaning of Section 3(1)(f).
In Rogers v. SOCAN, the Court ruled that on-demand transmissions of music streams as part of online music services are communications that are “to the public”.
The right to “communicate” is connected to the right to perform a work and not the right to reproduce permanent copies of the work.
The 1988 amendments to the Copyright Act which replaced the words “radio communication” with “telecommunication” should be understood as merely expanding the means of communicating a work — that is, from radio waves (“by radio communication”) to cable and other future technologies (“to the public by telecommunication”).
The term “telecommunication” should be broadly construed so as to apply to communications that do not depend on the types of technology used to effect the communication.
An on-demand communication of a work to members of the public can be a communication that is to the public.
In assessing whether any particular transmissions or series of transmissions are “to the public” the broader context has to be considered. A communication is not restricted to a purely non-interactive context. A series of repeated transmissions of the same work to numerous different recipients” may constitute a communication “to the public” within the meaning of s. 3(1)(f) of the Act. Where such a series of point-to-point communications of the same work to an aggregation of individuals is found to exist, it can be a communication that is “to the public”. Such an interpretation of the right is consistent with the WCT, which recognizes that the making available right extends “to point-to-point transmissions at the user’s request”.
[I]n determining whether paragraph 3(1)(f) applies to the transmission of a musical work in the form of a digital audio file, it is not enough to ask whether there is a one-to-one communication, or a one-to-one communication requested by the recipient. The answer to either of those questions would not necessarily be determinative because a series of transmissions of the same musical work to numerous different recipients may be a communication to the public if the recipients comprise the public, or a significant segment of the public.
CCH (SCC) determined that a “series of repeated … transmissions of the same work to numerous different recipients” may constitute a communication “to the public” within the meaning of s. 3(1)(f) of the Act (CCH (SCC), at para. 78). Where such a series of point-to-point communications of the same work to an aggregation of individuals is found to exist, it matters little for the purposes of copyright protection whether the members of the public receive the communication in the same or in different places, at the same or at different times or at their own or the sender’s initiative.
The Act applies to push as well as to pull means of transmitting a work to the public.
The applicability of the communication to the public right is not dependant on the arbitrary choice of business models.
Whether a business chooses to convey copyright protected content in a traditional, “broadcasting” type fashion, or opts for newer approaches based on consumer choice and convenience, the end result is the same. The copyrighted work has been made available to an aggregation of individuals of the general public.
Both the Access Copyright and the Bell v. SOCAN cases involved the construction of the fair dealing defence.
The Access Copyright case was a judicial review from a decision of the Copyright Board which examined whether copying of short extracts for classroom teaching purposes was a fair dealing. The Board and the Federal Court of Appeal had found it was not. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and remitted the matter back to the Board to reconsider its decision in accordance with its construction of the fair dealing defence.
The Bell v. SOCAN case addressed whether previews of music made available by online music services were a fair dealing for the purposes of research. The Board and the Federal Court of Appeal held they were. The Court affirmed that holding.
The test for fair dealing was articulated in CCH as involving two steps. The first is to determine whether the dealing is for the allowable purpose of “research or private study” under s. 29, “criticism or review” under s. 29.1, or “news reporting” under s. 29.2 of the Copyright Act. The second step of CCH assesses whether the dealing is “fair”.
The term “private study” can include students in a classroom setting.
The term “research” must be given a large and liberal interpretation and can include users listening to previews to decide whether to purchase music.
“Research” is not limited “to creative purposes”. It can “include many activities that do not demand the establishment of new facts or conclusions. It can be piecemeal, informal, exploratory, or confirmatory. It can in fact be undertaken for no purpose except personal interest.” Consumers’ uses of previews for the purpose of conducting research to identify which music to purchase can be “research” under the fair dealing framework.
The relevant perspective when considering whether a dealing is for an allowable purpose is that of the user and not the copier. The copier’s purpose is relevant in the fairness analysis.
Traditionally, the fairness of a dealing has been assessed by looking at the predominant purpose of the person engaged in the acts covered by copyright, i.e. the acts of the copier. In CCH, the Court expanded the framework to permit a dealing to be allowable where the purpose of the copier and the users were identical. In both the Access Copyright and SOCAN v Bell cases the Court departed from prior precedents and held that “the relevant perspective when considering whether the dealing is for an allowable purpose under the first stage of CCH is that of the user” and not the copier.
The “amount of the dealing” factor focuses on the proportion of the work copied in relation to the whole work; the “character of the dealing” factor examines the fairness of the copying in the aggregate.
In the Re:Sound case, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Board and the Federal Court of Appeal that the term “soundtrack” includes pre‑existing sound recordings and that such recordings are excluded from the definition of “sound recording” when they accompany a cinematographic work.
[i] Dan Glover and I acted for ESA in the ESA v. SOCAN appeal and for the interveners the Canadian Publishers’ Council, the Association of Canadian Publishers and the Canadian Educational Resources Council in the Access Copyright appeal.
[ii] See also the Rogers v. SOCAN case where the Court declined to let particular business models determine whether a transmission was to the public or not.

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