The decisions in the 5 copyright cases were released by the Supreme Court today. On first glance things went well, with the scope and limits of copyright clarified.
What will be hard for the technical community is to separate the specifics of a technology from how Copyright regulates specific uses of a technology. An example is the separation of a "stream" and a "download" which aren't different from a technological standpoint, but that are being regulated differently. The specific non-technical purpose of the bits being stored or sent from one place to another is what Copyright is regulating, not the fact that bits were stored or transmitted using a specific technology.
The decisions:
- CanLII: Entertainment Software Association v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada,
2012 SCC 34 [2]
- CanLII: Rogers Communications Inc. v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada,
2012 SCC 35 [3]
- CanLII: Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Bell Canada, 2012 SCC 36 [4]
- CanLII: Alberta (Education) v. Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright), 2012 SCC 37 [5]
- CanLII: Re:Sound v. Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada, 2012 SCC 38 [6]
Note: Chronology of Canadian Copyright Law [7] page updated.