The Supreme Court of Canada announced today that it has granted
leave to appeal to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation et al.
from the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) in the copyright case
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. SODRAC, 2014 FCA 84, in which the FCA upheld
SODRAC's royalty on ephemeral copies made during the course of
production. The dispute centres on whether the CBC and other
broadcasters must pay a royalty for ephemeral recordings made
solely for the facilitating the broadcast of the performance or
whether the concept of technological neutrality allows them to do
so without triggering the royalty.
The Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and
Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) is a collective society responsible
for the administration of reproduction rights in Canada. They
applied to the Canadian Copyright Board to set the terms of
reproduction licenses for 2008-2012 after negotiations with the two
broadcasters disintegrated. The CBC and
