As was the case last year, the main areas of interest and concern for academia in the Canadian copyright landscape in 2012 -- at least thus far -- have been Bill C-11 (Copyright Modernization Act) and Access Copyright.
1. Bill C-11 (Copyright Modernization Act)
The House of Commons received the report of the Legislative Committee reviewing Bill C-11 on March 15, 2012. Conservative Committee members have added some amendments -- mostly "modest tinkering", in the words of Copyright scholar and advocate Michael Geist -- and all Oppostion amendments, notably those addressing the controversial "digital locks" provision of the Bill, were defeated. The Bill still needs to go through Third Reading in the House and Senate review before it can receive Royal Assent and become law, but it seems very likely that Canada will have new copyright legislation within the next few months.
When Bill C-11 was introduced in September, 2011, the federal government's stated intention was to see it pass quickly and unchanged, citing the lengthy and widespread consultations already undertaken for C-11 (and its essentially identical predecessor, Bill C-32). Nevertheless, when the Legislative Committee reviewing C-11 began hearings in February some witnesses called for significant -- even drastic -- changes to the Bill. Among the demands heard by the Committee were a "notice-and-takedown" regime for Canadian ISPs, the extension of copyright term to "life-plus-70 years", requirements for ISPs to record and report user data in cases of alleged copyright infringement, and the removal or restriction of "education" as a category of fair dealing activity. Groups such as AUCC and the Canadian Library Association countered with calls to retain C-11 largely as-is, including provision for education-as-fair-dealing, with technical amendments to modify the controversial "digital locks" elements of the Bill.
2. Access Copyright
UPEI continues, along with more than 30 other Canadian universities, to exercise its right to operate outside the Access Copyright Interim Tariff for Post-Secondary Institutions, preferring instead to rely on fair dealing, the licensing provisions of many of our electronic resource subscriptions, and, where necessary, on securing permissions from rights-holders independently of Access Copyright. The surprise announcement by the University of Toronto and Western University in late January that each school had signed individual agreements with Access Copyright has not, as some suggested, pointed towards "peace" on the Access Copyright front: the agreements, negotiated in secret, have been harshly criticized by student and faculty groups, including the Canadian Federation of Students and CAUT, and by many expert observers of the Canadian copyright landscape, including Howard Knopf and Sam Trosow (the latter a faculty member at Western).