As we've discussed in a number of recent blog posts, the
Supreme Court of Canada this week released a number of major
copyright-related decisions. In one of these cases, Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers
of Canada v. Bell Canada (SOCAN), the Supreme Court considered
whether there would be a tariff for the communication of previews
of musical works over the internet.
Online music previews are short extracts of musical works and
assist a consumer in deciding musical purchases. The Copyright
Board concluded that those who make previews available, and the
users that listen to previews, were entitled to avail themselves of
the fair dealing exception under section 29 of the Copyright Act, as listening to the previews
constituted research of a purchasing decision (see our
previous post). The Federal Court of Appeal
upheld the Copyright Board's decision and SOCAN sought
leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
