Reading list: user-generated content in Canada

Teresa Scassa, Acknowledging Copyright’s Illegitimate Offspring: User-Generated Content and Canadian Copyright Law, in The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law (Michael Geist ed. 2013):

Bill C-11 provides for a new exception to infringement for user-generated content (UGC), along with new grounds for fair dealing. These provisions, combined with a strong and clear message from the Supreme Court of Canada’s pentalogy of copyright cases regarding users’ rights and the copyright balance, signal a new paradigm for copyright law in Canada—one that tolerates a much greater level of interaction with copyright-protected works. This chapter considers the shape Parliament has given to the UGC exception and examines its place within the scheme of the Copyright Act, particularly in light of recent Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. The chapter begins with a discussion of the definition of UGC, followed by an analysis of the statutory exception. It next considers the relationship between the UGC exception and the fair dealing exception.