Re: Are old Canadian books now in public domain?

Lisa Petersen <lisap[_at_]ziplink.net> asked:
>
> As a volunteer Webmaster for a Canadian genealogy site, I'm trying to
> learn as much as I can about Canadian copyright laws.

[skip]  

> I need to ask the experts on this list a few questions:
>
> Does the life-of-the-author-plus-50-years protection apply to books
> published before that law was passed?
>
> What is the term of copyright protection if the 'author' was a company?
>
> The reason I'm asking is I want to extract some names from a (city)
> directory published by McAlpine Publishing Company in Halifax, Nova
> Scotia, in 1908, and make this a searchable database on my web site.
> No author is mentioned, and McAlpine's doesn't exist in Halifax anymore.
> Is 1908 old enough to be in public domain?
>
> If not in public domain, could my intended use be considered fair use?
> I estimate that I would be extracting about 4% of the names, or about 2%
> of the contents of the directory. The names would be searchable on my
> web site, but not downloadable.

In answer to your first general question, the 1925 Copyright Act (and subsequent amendments) make provision for the inclusion of works whose copyright extisted at the time of the passage of the law, and for fitting old regimes into new regimes. (Schedule I of the Copyright Act still includes those 1925 provisions)

Term of copyright in Canada is life plus 50 years for published authored works. For Anonymous and Pseudonymous works, it lasts for 50 years from year of publication.

For your specific question about the McAlpine Halifax Directory, copyright would have expired in 1958 (copyright exists even if the owner of the copyright is impossible to find). So the Directory is in the public domaine.

Two other points:

First, if the material you want is still under copyright (e.g., you wanted to copy a 1950 directory) and the owner is now not known, you can apply to the Canadian Copyright Board for a special licence to use the material provided you have searched and are willing to pay a (generally small) reserve fee (really a bond for about 5 years).

Second, don't let people tell you that US court ruling concerning data-bases (the so-called Feist rules) apply and that directories are not protected by copyright. In Canada they are protected by copyright and copying them is an infringement for which Canadian courts will give remedy.

Ron B. Thomson, Chair
Canadian Copyright Institute
thomson[_at_]chass.utoronto.ca Received on Fri May 02 1997 - 14:25:07 GMT