Moyse, Pierre-Emmanuel --- "Canadian Colonial Copyright: The Colony Strikes Back" [2008] ELECD 367; in Gendreau, Ysolde (ed), "An Emerging Intellectual Property Paradigm" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: An Emerging Intellectual Property Paradigm

Editor(s): Gendreau, Ysolde

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847205971

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Canadian Colonial Copyright: The Colony Strikes Back

Author(s): Moyse, Pierre-Emmanuel

Number of pages: 32

Extract:

6. Canadian colonial copyright: the
colony strikes back
Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse
The study of Canada's colonial copyright offers a formidable vivarium of legal
manifestations that have been largely underexploited until this day. It abounds
with instructive data of economic and social importance regarding the devel-
opment of the early international trade of books. It is naturally enriched with
past legal experiences. Colonial copyright is a unique laboratory allowing us
to understand the legal normative response to social changes in matters of
cultural dimensions, national sovereignty and identity. It is our opinion that the
topic deserves closer attention, from the purely academic standpoint certainly,
but also for the purpose of policy formation. In a time of continuous reforms,
we should redirect our reflections towards lessons of the past and, perhaps,
resist the immediate magnetism of technological issues. It might be beneficial
to start our reflections anew from fixed anchors. The colonial episodes
concerned with the present article takes root in 1832,1 the date of the first
Canadian copyright legislation passed in what would become in 1840 the
Province of Canada,2 and ends with the passing of the 1911 Imperial legisla-
tion empowering colonial Parliaments to extend its provisions and adopt them
as their own.3 Canada did not elect to implement the British statute, but rather
passed its own 1921 Act which came into force in 1924.4 This latter decision
was a gesture of obvious significance, since it closes a sore chapter of tumul-
tuous negotiations between ...