Supreme Court Clarifies Scope Of Fair Dealing

On July 12, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the scope of the "fair dealing" exception to copyright infringement, found in section 29 of the Copyright Act (the Act), which allows copies to be made for research, private study, criticism and review. 

Facts and Judicial History

As stated in a previous blog post, the case of Alberta (Education) v Canadian Copyright Licensing Agencysurrounds the contention over whether elementary and secondary schools can claim the benefit of "fair dealing" exception for copies of works made at the teacher's initiative for the student's use.

The Copyright Board (the Board) distinguished between copies made by the teacher at the request of a student and copies made by the teacher without prior request from a student. It concluded that copies made by teachers for student use were made for the allowable purpose of "research or private study", but found, applying the CCH fairness factors articulated in CCH Canadian Ltd v Law