CASE ANALYSIS "CCH CANADIAN LIMITED VESUS LAW SOCIETY OF UPPER CANADA"

If a work need’s to be original in nature it has be more than just a copy of another work it is not important that the work is creation but in a sense it has to be unique and one of its kind and should include the intellectual effort of that author.

BRIEF FACTS OF THE CASE

The law society of Upper Canada (respondent) got a library offering both customs and self serve photocopy service. CCH Canadian Ltd. (Petitioner) sues for infringement of copyright in 11 specific works and asks for a permanent injunction preventing further copying. Law society denies the infringement and files a counter claim to declare hat it’s activities did not infringe copyright of publisher, by either providing single copy for research purpose or by allowing patrons to avail themselves of the self service photocopiers

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The federal court trial division and federal court appeal basically allowed the publishers that to claim in part. As the Law society appealed in Supreme court of Canada.

ISSUES

There has been various issues that has been discussed in the following case:

Whether the publishers material “original work” protected under copyright or not?
Is Library authorizes the copyright infringement by maintaining self service photocopiers and the work of the publishers works for its patrons use?
Whether the law’s society dealing with the publishers works under section 29 of the copyright act or not?

HELD

Therefore, the court allowed the appeal of CCH Canadian Limited. So, the Court of appeal decision overturned.

ANALYSIS

As the publishers work are basically original and the work has been protected by the copyright act and applied for the test of originality:

The expression of an idea is just an exercise of skill and judgment.
The work of creativity need not to be original

In the particular case the question which was raised it is an original work or not? Therefore, the court rightly said being the head-notes are inspired largely by judgment and not of its identical copies for certain reasons as part of the judgment can be selected and as per one’s choice arranged accordingly because in judgment it’s the part which was written by the judge and not the laws because the judgment contains more than the laws it also contains the part which also contains the part of judge discretion and that part can be copyright but for that author need to have knowledge of the subject for the same.

And if we look at the case summary can also be considered to be an original work therefore covered by the copyright because in case summary the person has been using his mind to write the case which is 50 pages and to shorten with his analysis which he used because the person knows about the law as a summary can’t be made just by plagiarism it needs to be the point what the case is all about.

As in 2^nd issue it has been discovered that the library didn’t authorize the copyright infringement. For self service photocopiers it was said by the court that as there was no particular evidence that the photocopiers were used in a manner that was not consistent with the copyright law. It was noted by the court that mere use of the equipment does not lead to the copyright infringement. As the work which was granted copies to patrons as basically for research and which was basically considered to be an exception related to the copyright infringement

In this case also there were no such evidence were there that the copiers were used that were inconsistent with the copyright law. And no such in dealing was written that copiers used will be used in an illegal manner so the LSUC lacks the sufficient control over the work that was chooses to be copied by the patron. As the appeal was done by the CCH and the burden of proof is on them because they need to show that they can rely on the Doctrine of fair dealing or not.

In my opinion that if a work need’s to be original in nature it has be more than just a copy of another work it is not important that the work is creation but in a sense it has to be unique and one of its kind and should include the intellectual effort of that author.

LSUC can basically rely on the general practice under the 1996 i.e. Access to law policy to establish fair dealing the basic purpose of this test is to show that section 29 of the copyright act in which the defendant need to prove certain things