From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright" : Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda

Chapter Fourteen

An “Independent” View of Bill C-32’s Copyright Reform
Tina Piper

The act of legislating copyright assumes that there is a consensus over what copyright is: that those participating in the dialogue of law-creation use words similarly; that implicated parties have definable interests and use their rights in specific ways; that those uses of copyright are held by owners as property-like rights and entitlements. Reform of that legislation presumes an essence of what copyright does: that rights holders (creators or owners) seek to maximize the strength of their right and sell more prod- ucts; that the public benefits from increased access; that copyright provides access; that a copyright may be regarded as a reward that incentivizes cre- ative production and artistic labour, and other such assumptions. This no- tion of consensus is highlighted by the fact that when closely analyzed, the words used to define copyright are ambiguous: terms like “public,” “inter- est,” “creator,” “user,” and “owner” are notably indeterminate. These words are used as metaphors, metonymies, analogies or projections and among some group of people (or interests) these terms have a shared meaning that allows conversation about copyright to proceed.

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