Parliamentary Hearings on Copyright Law Reform (2003)

Parliamentary Hearings on Copyright Law Reform (September 2003)

In September 2003, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (Heritage Committee) began its review of the Section 92 reportpublished by Industry Canadain October 2002. The Committee asked for written submissions from interested parties by September 15th; this deadline was later extended to October 17th. Unfortunately, those submissions are not posted by the Committee. Many of them have, however, been posted on the responsible organization's website. Submitting organizations include:

• Association of Canadian Community Colleges

• Balanced Copyright Coalition

• Canadian Cable Television Association

• Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access

• Canadian Press

• Canadian Teachers' Federation

• Computing Technology Industry Association

• Copyright Board of Canada

• Corus Entertainment Inc.

• Directors Guild of Canadaand Directors Rights Collective of Canada

• Neighboring Rights Collective of Canada

• Public Interest Advocacy Centre

• Radio-Television News Directors Association

• Russell McOrmond

• TELUS

• The Canadian Association of Research Libraries

• The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency

• Droit d'auteur multimedia internet copyright

• Société des auteurs de radio, television et cinéma

• Société professionnelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Québec et Société du droit de reproduction des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs au Canada (spacq)

• Union des artistes

• Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Some of the submitting parties were subsequently invited to appear before the Committee. Law students interning at CIPPIC attended and blogged some of the hearings.

Student blogs:

• October 23, 2003

• October 29, 2003

• November 4, 2003

• November 6, 2003

The Heritage Committee resumed its consideration of copyright law reform in the spring of 2004, under the new session of Parliament. See the Committee's website for information on its hearings under the new session of Parliament, including testimony from interested parties on various issues including WIPO treaty ratification and Canada's private copying tariff, photographers' rights, and ISP liability.