HUGHES ON COPYRIGHT AND INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

摘要

This was an application for judicial review of a decision by the Copyright Board of Canada dismissing the applicants' objection that the Board has no jurisdiction to establish a tariff that would apply to them in respect of the reprographic reproduction of copyrighted works in the repertoire of the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, operating as "Access Copyright" (Access). Access had filed proposed tariffs relating to the reproduction of published works in its repertoire by employees of all provincial and territorial governments. The applicants had argued that the presumption of Crown immunity applied and the Copyright Act (Act) did not bind them. The Board noted that section 17 of the Interpretation Act creates a presumption that the Crown is not bound by any statute, but that presumption is rebutted where it can be demonstrated that there exists a contrary intention to bind the Crown. It noted that the Act contains exceptions that expressly benefit the Crown and that seem to indicate a purposeful, explicit intention on the part of Parliament to identify and circumscribe activities that do not infringe copyright. If the Crown benefited from an overall immunity from the Act, these exceptions would not have been necessary. They were not adopted out of an abundance of caution or as historical incidents. The Board concluded that when the whole of the Act is analysed contextu-ally, the logical conclusion is that the Act generally binds the Crown.