It’s been an interesting week for Canadian copyright. In case you don’t follow the lawyers and politicians…(and why would you)…. the debate over copyright has turned a bit snippy here in Canada. Parliament is debating the current version of the copyright reform bill (Bill C-11), and various lobby and interest groups are fighting to get air time on this topic before the final version of the bill is sent to final reading in the House. So witness the sparring between the following players:

• Last year the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) committee made a submission to Parliament entitled simply Bill C-32 — Copyright Modernization Act Amendments (Bill C-11 is the Bill Formerly Known as Bill C-32);
• Professor Michael Geist posted a December blog entry entitled Clearing Up the Copyright Confusion: Fair Dealing and Bill C-32;
• Then came the January Response to Professor Michael Geist’s Clearing Up the Copyright Confusion;
• Next we saw interesting allegations by a group of Canadian IP lawyers that the CBA committee was a secretive cabal guilty of plagiarism;
• It didn’t take long for the counter-point by the CBA and Professor Geist that no plagiarism occurred: Counterpoint: Music lobby smears CBA paper;
• And finally a response by Dan Glover to Professor Geist’s response.

For Canadian copyright law, it doesn’t get much more exciting. With the possible exception of the isohunt case, a Canadian bit-torrent lawsuit. After all this, the Parliamentary committee has finalized its review of Bill C-11, without making any major changes and the bill will proceed to Third Reading. Stay tuned.
Calgary – 07:00 MDT