Re: copyright, crime, Canada

Pat McNees <103250.2371[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> Last night on National Public Radio there was an interesting
> discussion about Canadian copyright law and crime -- I gather
> legislation was proposed that would make it impossible for criminals
> to benefit from copyright on their writings,.....
>

snip
>
> Is this legislation of interest to this Forum? I was curious to
> know more about it.

The Bill is a private members Bill, C-205 found at:

It would deem the copyright in works about serious crimes to belong to the Government. This is probably in response to public outrage against some very nasty criminals named Olson, who about 15 years ago and more recently Bernardo and Bernardo's then wife Homolka, who raped and killed children. What the Government would do with the copyright is hard to imagine.

Few private member's bills make it into law. Sometimes, in Canada, they sneak though. This one, reportedly, may do so. Naturally, it raises all sorts of policy, constitutional and other legal issues, as I recall occurred with the "Son of Sam" laws in the USA. Ironically, this comes at the same time as the most comprehensive and controversial revision to Canada's copyright law in 76 years is poised to pass.

Good politics and good causes are not always the same thing as good law.

The URL for Bill C-205 in my previous message is:

   http://www.parl.gc.ca/english/senate/deb-e/prog-e.htm

-- 
Howard Knopf
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