Copyright in Canada

The NZ Herald reports:

In another of the rulings Thursday, the justices said online music stores will not have to pay royalties on song previews to publishers and songwriters.

The high court ruled song previews what a customer would listen to before purchasing digital music from online retailers such as an iTune constitutes research under copyright legislation and thus the consumer should not pay a royalty.

“Short, low-quality previews do not compete with, or adversely affect, the downloading of the works themselves. Instead, their effect is to increase the sale and dissemination of copyrighted musical works,” said the ruling.

I’m not sure what is more scary – the stupidity or the greed of the music studios in trying to get people to pay for previews. I often listen to a song preview before buying it – it helps me decide whether to buy it. The previews are never the entire song, and I’ve never heard of anyone copying the previews, as they are incomplete.

The fifth ruling found that photocopying textbooks for classroom use in public schools does not infringe copyright laws, and should not be subject to a tariff

I’m not sure if this means entire textbooks can be copied, but it should allow chapters to be photocopied for academic use.