Copyright Conference at U of T on October 2, 2015 – Will Include One Hour Presentation by the Honourable Ian Binnie

This looks like it will be a very interesting and potentially very important copyright conference at U of T on October 2, 2015.

The star of the event will no doubt be the Honourable Ian Binnie,C.C., Q.C, a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice whose decision in Théberge v. Galerie d’Art du Petit Champlain inc., [2002] 2 S.C.R. 336, 2002 SCC 34 arguably kicked off and set the tone for the modern era of IP jurisprudence in Canada. It will be recalled that he famously opined in that case that:

The proper balance among these and other public policy objectives lies not only in recognizing the creator’s rights but in giving due weight to their limited nature.  In crassly economic terms it would be as inefficient to overcompensate artists and authors for the right of reproduction as it would be self-defeating to undercompensate them.  Once an authorized copy of a work is sold to a member of the public, it is generally for the purchaser, not the author, to determine what happens to it. 

He retired from the Court in 2011.

There will be other notable speakers and three panels. One may anticipate some sparks flying, for example in the panels on Fair Dealing and its Application to Educational Institutions and Review of Copyright Board: Past Behaviours and Expectations for the Future. Yours truly will be on the latter panel.

The conference is very reasonably priced and space is very limited. I expect that this will be a “hot ticket” event and early registration is strongly encouraged.

BTW, there’s a reasonably good chance that we will have a decision by the time of the conference from the Supreme Court of Canada in the CBC v. SODRAC case, which could make the event even more interesting.

The program is below.

HPK

Networking Coffee	8:00 am – 8:30 am
The Honourable Ian Binnie	8:30 am – 9:30 am
Break	9:30 am – 9:45 am
Making Sense of Fair Dealing and its Application to Educational Institutions J. Aidan O’Neill, Erin Finlay, Ysolde Gendreau, & Inba Kehoe	9:45 am – 10:45 am
Coffee Break	10:45 am – 11:00 am
Copyright Futures Jean Dryden, Mistrale Goudreau, Martin Zeilinger, & Victoria Owen	11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Lunch	12:00 pm – 12:45 pm
Ariel Katz	12:45 pm – 1:45 pm
Coffee Break	1:45 pm – 2:00 pm
Review of Copyright Board: Past Behaviours and Expectations for the Future  Paul Halucha, Gilles Daigle, Howard Knopf, & Stephen Spong	2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Break	3:00 pm – 3:15 pm
Casey Chisick	3:15pm – 4:15pm
Closing Remarks	4:15pm – 4:30pm
Networking Cocktail Reception: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library	5:30 pm – 7:00 pm