I have just uploaded to SSRN a new working paper titled “Comparison of Fair Dealing and Fair Use in Education Post-Pentalogy”. In it I discuss the scope of Canadian fair dealing and American fair use since the five landmark decisions of the Canadian Supreme Court in 2012, and the amendment of the Copyright Act the same year.

A summary of this paper was presented as a work-in-progress at the 2013 IP Scholars Conference at Cardozo Law School.

Abstract:

While traditionally American fair use has been thought of as broader in scope than Canadian fair dealing, I claim that in 2013 this is no longer the case. I further argue that educational administrators and academic and library associations in Canada have yet to take full advantage of this expansion of users’ rights.

In Part I I give a brief and general overview of copyright in Canada and the United States. In Part II I compare the legislation and jurisprudence specifically with respect to fair dealing and fair use, using the fairness factors as a guide. Specifically, this part will examine differences with respect to the fairness factors in general, transformativity, amount and substantiality, market harm and licences, and institutional practice and policy. Part III is a discussion of the advocacy efforts of Canadian and American educational and library professional associations and the development of best practices and guidelines. I conclude that colleges and universities in Canada may now confidently develop copyright policies that reflect the rights of users, but educational administrators and associations in Canada are lagging behind their American counterparts in leveraging this opportunity.