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LEGAL REPORT: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY "Now it means that when the carriers So which is it? Does or ISPs are selling music, they have to pay not only for the production right but the communication right, so it means an added cost for the consumer. It's a layering of rights that makes it more ex- pensive for companies like iTunes and Peertracks to sell music in Canada. Es- sentially what's being created here is an uber-right." Sookman wouldn't divulge whether the CWTA plans to appeal, but does say, "It's a very important issue of national importance." Daigle says the court decided in a way that boils down to the fact "that you have to interpret the Copyright Act in the con- text of all of these technologi- cal developments, you have to give them a purposive analysis and interpretation, and you can't interpret the act in a way you might have 20 years ago when the technology was so different." the current Copyright Act adequately deal with new technolo- gies and the rights associated with it? Or is it a Stone Age relic that needs serious overhaul- ing? "They're com- plicated issues, and it seems like when we get over one hurdle and sort out one particular indus- try, the underlying technologies have changed and continued to change so quickly that we're back on to identifying new issues," says Daigle. "The law, admittedly, is quite slow in catching up to these tech- nological developments. It's something that's happened over decades," he says. While there is much speculation over INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Good enough is never good enough SIM, LOWMAN, ASHTON & MCKAY LLP Barristers & Solicitors SIM & MCBURNEY Patent & Trade-mark Agents changes to Canada's copy- right laws, no one is quite sure what the feds have up their sleeves. If anything, say IP lawyers, Canada needs to keep pace with just about every other country in the in- dustrialized world by implementing the World Intellectual Property Orga- nization treaties. "Canada had agreed back in 1997 to adopt them and we haven't done it, but it's going to be the courts that are sorting out these rights," says Sookman. "We're one of the last countries. Every member of the EU has adopted legisla- tion to implement the WIPO treaties, and so have our other trading partners, including Japan. We're kind of the last country of the industrialized world to do it. It's disgraceful." experience. results. 20 Queen W. Ste 3202, Toronto | 416.971.7202 | dimock.com 52 M ARCH 2008 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com ntitled-4 1 2/8/08 11:20:21 AM