Re: Canadian Unlocateable Owner clause

Hi Wallace,
As far as I'm aware, the Copyright Board didn't do this until fairly recently (as these things go :-). and again, as far as I;m aware, they made the decision to go through the Access copyright collective - at least for print materials. Do they also go through them for unpublished materials where the death date of the author is not known? I've looked at a few of their decisions, as listed on the Board's Web site, and to the best of my recollection, there's no mention of the collective. Do they use the other collectives for other media?

Seems to me that there's a potential court challenge here. I don't know anything in Canadian copyright law or reg's that sanctions the Board's behaviour, do you? At best it's a way of getting the traffic off their plates so they can deal with 'more important' things, like the various tarrifs for playing and recording music, etc. At worst it's just as you said - feathering the nests of others who in all likelihood bear absolutely  no relationship to the actual author of the piece. Cheers,
Bernard.

Bernard Katz, former head, Special Collections and Library Development

                            McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph     author, descriptive bibliog. of L.M. Montgomery's books (in progress)     and almost former chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Task Force

On Mon, 6 Mar 2006, Wallace J.McLean wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bernard Katz <bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca>
> Date: Friday, March 3, 2006 1:40 pm
> Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: rights for defunct newspaper?
>> A second suggestion, again pertenant to the Canadian scene, is that
>> the Copyright Board can be asked to licence a use under Section 77
>> (Owners
>> Who Cannot Be Located). See <www.cb-cda.gc.ca/unlocatable/brochure-
>> e.html>.
>
> Which is fine, if you are willing to pay Margaret Atwood for work she
> didn't do. The Canadian Copyright Board has a cushy deal with the
> collectives, so that they get paid for the use of "unlocateables",
> even though part of the definition of "unlocateable" is that the
> author/owner isn't a member of, nor is the work in the repertoire of,
> the collective in question!
>
> The collectives have about the same record finding "unlocateable"
> copyright owners as the rest of us: zero; one at best. Meanwhile, they
> collect thousands of dollars for having done no work, and distribute
> it to their membership for having done no work.
>
> Shades of "Sponsorship"!
Received on Wed Mar 08 2006 - 02:25:31 GMT