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ARTICLE · 05 OCTOBER 2018

USMCA: Extended Copyright Term Leads Canada's Coming Copyright Changes

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Late Sunday evening, Canada signed onto the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement.

CanadaInternational Law
Bereskin & Parr LLP
Bereskin & Parr LLP
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Late Sunday evening, Canada signed onto the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement. The USMCA includes a number of provisions that impose obligations on the member states relating to intellectual property and digital media.

The USMCA provides that the term of copyright protection shall be "not less than the life of the author and 70 years from the author's death". Under Canada's existing Copyright Act, the general term of copyright protection for works extends for 50 years from the end of the year that the last living author dies. As part of the transition period, Canada has up to 2.5 years from the date that USMCA enters into force to amend the Copyright Act to reflect the extended copyright term. Other provisions of the USMCA suggest that it could enter into force no earlier than Spring 2019, and more likely not until the second half of 2019, which would give Canada until late 2021 or early 2022 to

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