Internet Previews of Music can be Fair Dealing under Copyright

The Federal Court of Appeal recently released an important ruling on the scope of the fair-dealing exception, in a judicial review of the Copyright Board's decision on SOCAN Tariff 22.A. At issue was whether online music services have the benefit of the fair-dealing exception in Section 29 of the Copyright Act when they offer customers previews of music files of up to 30 seconds to help them select music to purchase. The court, following the decision of the board, ruled that they do. As a result, no royalties are payable to SOCAN for these previews.

Under Section 29, fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study does not infringe copyright. The main issues in the judicial review were whether the dealing for preview purposes was "research" and whether the dealing was fair.