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The Fair Dealing Exception Explained: A 20 Year Retrospective

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Abstract
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This paper is intended for library practitioners and information professionals, presenting a deep dive into the Canadian case law that relates to fair dealing, a user’s right, with a particular focus on CCH and subsequent cases from 2004 to 2024. Readers will learn the importance of fair dealing, discovering how decisions from the courts can be used to help users of copyrighted works conduct fair dealing analyses by considering the six fair dealing factors prescribed by the Supreme Court of Canada in CCH. This “paper” does not follow a typical structure expected of a research paper, and is not meant to be read as a complete work. Rather, the summaries and excerpts provided below are to be used as references for those researching fair dealing or conducting fair dealing analyses. The genesis of the 2024 ABC Copyright Conference presentation, available in the ABC 2024 collection and copies of all cases referenced in both our presentation and this paper are available in an open reading list.

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Fair Dealing for the Purpose of Education: York University v The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency

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Most Canadian Universities and Colleges Outside of Quebec Rely on Fair Dealing Rather than Access Copyright
  • Sep 15, 2021
  • Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
  • Thomas Rouleau

A Review of: Henderson, S., McGreal, R., & Vladimirschi, V. (2018). Access Copyright and fair dealing guidelines in higher educational institutions in Canada: A survey. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 13(2), 1-37. https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v13i2.4147 Abstract Objective – To investigate the interpretations of fair dealing applied across Canadian post-secondary educational institutions outside of Quebec and to determine whether such institutions have a licence with Access Copyright. Design – Descriptive/quantitative study. Setting – Canadian post-secondary education sector, excluding Quebec. Subjects – A total of 159 Canadian post-secondary institutions outside of Quebec, including 75 universities and 84 colleges. Methods – A list of Canadian post-secondary educational institutions outside of Quebec was compiled. Data from participants relating to the research objective—reliance on an Access Copyright licence or use and interpretation of fair dealing—was collected via internet searches or, if unavailable online, via direct telephone communication with participants. Main Results – A majority of Canadian post-secondary educational institutions outside of Quebec, approximately 78% (124 institutions), did not have a licence with Access Copyright. The smaller the institution, the likelier it was to have an Access Copyright licence. This was in part linked to the fact that smaller institutions typically do not have staff specializing in copyright; savings from terminating Access Copyright licences (charged on a per student basis) would not justify the creation of such positions. Regarding fair dealing, 18% of study participants based their approach on the Supreme Court of Canada’s six-factor test (29 institutions), while 53% applied the fair dealing guidelines created by Universities Canada (85 institutions). Conclusion – Most of the institutions studied did not have Access Copyright licences and were relying on fair dealing instead, suggesting a bellwether for the copyright climate in the Canadian higher education sector towards fair dealing. Institutions may benefit from a future national consensus regarding interpretations of fair dealing concepts.

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The Copyright Pentalogy : How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law
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Access Copyright and Fair Dealing Guidelines in Higher Educational Institutions in Canada: A Survey
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  • Serena Henderson + 2 more

Information about the acceptance by Canadian Higher Education Institutions (HEI) of the Access Copyright (AC) tariff is important for educators even though only a minority of HEIs in Canada have committed to the AC tariff. In addition, the copyright “pentalogy,” the five major decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), and its interpretation of fair dealing has become relevant for the institutions, faculty and students. Many universities and community colleges in Canada have adopted the Universities Canada (UC) guidelines on fair dealing, while some have adopted the “six-point test” as their guideline. In some cases, institutions have not adopted any policy or guidelines on any aspect of copyright. This paper will investigate these issues to provide one view of the behaviour Canadian HEIs exhibit in their adherence to AC and their use of policy and guidelines at their institutions.

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Debunking the Fair Use vs. Fair Dealing Myth: Have We Had Fair Use All Along?
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  • Ariel Katz

According to conventional wisdom, a fundamental difference exists between the American fair use doctrine and the Canadian fair dealing doctrine (or that of other Commonwealth countries): while American fair use can apply potentially to any purpose, fair dealing could only apply to the explicit purposes enumerated in the statute. Accordingly, the argument goes, fair dealing cannot apply to dealings for unenumerated purposes no matter how fair they might be. This conventional wisdom is false. When the UK Parliament first codified the doctrine of fair use eleven decades ago, it had no intention to restrict or limit its application, adaptation and adjustment by the courts. The UK Parliament (and presumably the legislators of other Commonwealth countries that enacted copyright statutes based on the UK Act) sought to codify a principle, an open, flexible, and general standard, not precise rules, and had no intention to prevent its application to purposes beyond those specifically mentioned in the statute. Unfortunately, the English courts, in a series of early post-codification failed to recognize this point have sentenced fair dealing to a hundred years of stagnation. Fortunately, at the turn of the twenty-first century the Supreme Court of Canada declined to follow that restrictive path. The Canadian Parliament’s decision to explicitly recognize additional purposes in 2012 and add other specific exceptions moves Canadian law in the same direction. The Court’s rulings and Parliament’s action have entrenched fair dealing and provided a necessary correction that allows fair dealing to resume the role it was always supposed to play. Yet, if conventional wisdom is correct, some uses, present or future, are still categorically excluded. This is not a recipe for progress. In a legal environment that outlaws novel ways of using, reusing and disseminating works outright, fewer new forms of expression will emerge. Fortunately, there is no serious indication that Parliament intended to so restrict the application of fair dealing when it codified it, and there are very good reasons—as a matter of statutory interpretation and policy—contradicting the view that it did have such intention. This chapter, adapted from an earlier piece written in 2013, explains those reasons, and includes additional evidence beyond those discussed in the earlier piece. It debunks the Fair Use vs. Fair Dealing myth and shows that an open, flexible, and general fair dealing is already here. It always has been.

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Self-induced intoxication: balancing principles of justice and responsibility
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Mr. Daviault, a 72-year-old alcoholic, was charged with dragging a 65-year-old woman from her wheelchair and sexually assaulting her. This occurred after Mr. Daviault had consumed eight beers and 35 ounces of brandy. The majority of the Supreme Court of Canada (S.C.C.) allowed evidence of intoxication to be presented as a to this general intent offense. The S.C.C. held that evidence of intoxication was available in situations where the accused could establish that the act was not voluntary or the requisite intent was not formed as a result of a state of intoxication akin to insanity or automatism. This created an exception to the general rule that evidence of was allowed to be presented as a only to specific intent offenses. As a result of the decision in Daviault,1 evidence of intoxication could be presented as a to offenses of both specific and general intent. Daviault and decisions that followed Daviault2 illustrate the problem Parliament faced: that an accused may lack the blameworthy mental state necessary to convict him of assault but certainly not be morally blameless. Outcries from society demanded immediate legislative changes. Parliament responded quickly by introducing Bill C-72,3 an amendment to the Criminal Code intended to undo the change in the law that resulted from the S.C.C. decision in Daviault. Parliament proposed to return the law to its previous state by making it clear that the of was not available to any general intent offenses regardless of the level of intoxication. This paper puts the proposed amendment into context and evaluates Bill C-72 under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.4 The first section of this paper deals with the case law background of how criminal law has dealt with the intoxicated offender. The second section takes a detailed look at Parliament's suggested solution, Bill C-72. Sections three through five give an analysis of the Charter rights that may be infringed by the bill and evaluates the bill's chance of surviving a Charter challenge under s. 1. I: The case law before and after Daviault A) The law before5 the decision in Daviault It is common to talk of the defense of drunkenness; however, is not a defense. The more accurate terminology would be that there was a lack of mens rea. In this paper the term defence of drunkenness is used, but it is important to remember that evidence of intoxication has the effect of calling into question whether an essential element of the offense has been proved. If the Crown is unable to convince the trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of all the essential elements of the offense, then the accused must be acquitted. The law draws a distinction between crimes that require specific intent and crimes that require only general intent. A general intent offense requires such a minimal mental element that the voluntary act itself could satisfy the necessary intent component. Drunkenness was believed to be incapable of negating this minimal intent. For a specific intent offense, the accused must be able to form the more specific intent that is set out in the Criminal Code. This specific intention cannot be inferred from the act. If a person's mind is severely clouded by alcohol or drugs to the point that he or she lacks the ability to form the specific intent to commit the crime, the accused must be acquitted. Before Daviault, evidence of intoxication was allowed before the trier of fact in relation to only specific intent offenses. General intent offenses required such a minimal mental element that the voluntary act itself could satisfy the necessary intent component. Extreme intoxication had been raised before in the S.C.C., but only in side comments.6 The issue of extreme intoxication as a in general intent offenses was unresolved. The S.C.C. was given the opportunity to provide an answer to this question in Daviault. …

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Envisioning how fair use and fair dealing might best facilitate scholarship
  • Jan 1, 2015
  • Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
  • Nadia Caidi + 3 more

Copyright law grants exclusive rights to authors of original works of authorship, but those rights are subject to numerous exceptions and limitations, including fair use in the United States and fair dealing in Canada. These exceptions have traditionally worked to ensure that the rights of copyright owners are adequately balanced with the interests of subsequent authors, researchers, and consumers of copyrighted works. Moreover, fair use has emerged as the most promising legal mechanism for the digitization, preservation, and study of large collections of copyrighted work. Fair use and fair dealing provide much of the flexibility needed to ensure that copyright protection serves to facilitate scholarship rather than threaten it. Scholars encounter copyright law both as authors and as users of copyrighted works. With an eye toward the future, this panel will examine the extent to which the discourses and practices of the past decade have contributed to shaping and reshaping our scholarly environment, how the information field has responded, and why and how information scholars, researchers and professionals ought to remain engaged in these matters in the future.

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Clerking at the Supreme Court of Canada
  • Dec 1, 1994
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This article takes an in-depth look at the law clerks and the role they play at the Supreme Court of Canada. Such an examination both informs prospective clerks on the nature of the position and promotes a better general understanding of how the judicial process operates at this level. The authors begin their analysis by looking at the history of the law clerks at the Supreme Court. Although the functions of the clerks have changed little since their introduction in 1968, the clerkship program has evolved with a changing Supreme Court, contributing to the institutions "coming of age." The authors then shift their attention to examining the present clerkship program. The article first reveals the manner in which the clerks are selected by the Court. Using data collected by a questionnaire sent to clerks of the 1991-93 terms, the authors also attempt to convey, in a general way, some sense of the people who have served at the Court in recent years. Next, the major functions performed by the clerks are described. While the clerks do have a great deal of responsibility, the authors dispel much of the criticism directed at United States Supreme Court clerks by stating that the law clerks at the Supreme Court of Canada do not have an improper degree of authority. The authors conclude that the clerking experience benefits both the clerks themselves and the procedures of the Court. As such, the law clerks are an entrenched and indispensable part of the judicial process at the Supreme Court of Canada.

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