The Government of Canada has announced, through its 2015 Budget, that it intends to make changes to the Copyright Act that would see copyright protection terms extended for sound recordings and performances. Specifically, the Government of Canada is proposing to extend the term of protections afforded to both sound recordings and performances from 50 to 70 years following the date of the release of the sound recordings. The full details of this change will come to light when the Budget Implementation Act is tabled in Parliament. It should be noted that this change would bring Canada’s copyright right term in line with the more than 60 countries (including Europe and the United States) that currently have copyright terms of 70+ years.
CIMA applauds this proposed change to the Copyright Act, and we thank the Government of Canada for recognizing the importance of this matter to Canada’s domestic music industry.
Term extensions on copyright has been a part of CIMA’s lobbying objectives for copyright in Canada, and it was one of our recommendations to the Government when it was soliciting feedback on the proposed contents of Bill C-11 in November 2011. You can read our full submission here, but one of our 10 recommendations was that the Government should extend the term of copyright for 70 years in order to ensure that copyright modernization included keeping up with international norms and standards.
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