Wikilily: copyright

[Mike Blackstock]

It  appears that some people are posting snippets of music from artists 
who haven't been dead yet for 50 years, the main criteria for public 
domain stuff in Canada.

Just for the record:

The Canadian Copyright Act (http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html) 
states "Fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study does 
not infringe copyright".  The wikipedia article on '"fair dealing" at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing#Fair_dealing_in_Canada gives 
some good guidelines"

"...six principal criteria for evaluating fair dealing.

  1. *The Purpose of the Dealing* Is it for research, private study,
     criticism, review or news reporting? It expresses that "these
     allowable purposes should not be given a restrictive
     interpretation or this could result in the undue restriction of
     users' rights."

Indeed, it seems the Copyright Act spends most of its time dealing with 
what *is not* an infringement. Back to wikipedia:

*    " 3. The Amount of the Dealing* How much of the work was used? What 
was the importance of the infringed work? Quoting trivial amounts may 
alone sufficiently establish fair dealing. In some cases even quoting 
the entire work may be fair dealing."

Ok, enough.. I just wanted to touch on this in a public forum... I think 
using snippets of works, and posting them, to learn a computer program
is "fair dealing." I won't be losing any sleep over it.

Cheers,
Mike