Scholary communications: What has changed

Courts in the U.S. have asserted for years that our copyright law is compatible with the First Amendment guarantee of free speech by citing to principles — fair use and the rule that copyright protects only expression and leaves the underlying ideas free for all to appropriate, reuse and build upon. Both of these safeguards are still in place, yet I have twice claimed in this space that we need to look again at the relationship between copyright and free expression. So the question presents itself, do I just not get it, as at least one commenter seems to think, or has something changed to make reliance on fair use and idea/expression inadequate these days?
Although I am not convinced that the two principles usually cited were ever adequate, especially as the scope of copyright’s monopoly expanded, what has clearly changed, in recent years, is that Congress adopted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998. The DMCA added two provisions to the copyright act that have had a negative impact on free expression.

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Canadian Software Piracy Rates Estimated

As part of the attempt to characterize Canada as a "piracy haven," the Business Software Alliance's annual Global Piracy Report plays a lead role. The Conference Board of Canada references the findings, as do their funders in their reports on the state of Canadian intellectual property laws (Chamber of Commerce, CACN). Moreover, the report always generates considerable media interest, with coverage this year in the Globe and Mail and Canwest papers. For example, the Globe cited the data directly in the Download Decade series stating that "about 32 per cent of the computer software in Canada is pirated, contributing to losses of $1.2-billion (U.S.) in 2008 alone, according to a report from the Business Software Alliance."

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