Permission No Longer Required to Reproduce Government of Canada Works

Simon Fodden at Slaw.ca reports on a recent change to Crown Copyright in the Canadian federal sector.

Since 1998, permission was not required to reproduce federal statutes or decisions by federally-constituted courts and administrative tribunals.

Now the federal government has announced that permission to "reproduce Government of Canada works is no longer required, in part or in whole, and by any means, for personal or public non-commercial purposes, or for cost-recovery purposes, unless otherwise specified in the material you wish to reproduce."

For discussions of Crown Copyright:

• Crown Copyright and Licensing : official Canadian government website
  
• The Impact of Crown Copyright on Access to Law-Related Information (chapter from a 2005 Master of Law thesis on Access To Law-Related Information In Canada In The Digital Age by Slaw.ca contributor Ted Tjaden)
• Enabling Access and Reuse of Public Sector Information in Canada: Crown Commons Licenses, Copyright, and Public Sector Information (chapter by Elizabeth F. Judge in From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, Irwin Law, Toronto, 2010): "This article examines public sector information and analyzes developments in Canada and other jurisdictions to promote its public access and reuse. It discusses the extent to which public sector information has been integrated into copyright reform efforts and, where public sector information is copyright protected, it discusses the mechanisms available within the copyright framework to facilitate public access and reuse of public sector information, focusing in particular on licensing. In Canada, Crown copyright restrictions and complicated licensing limit access to public sector information. The article recommends that Canada establish a centralized portal for open government data (www.data.gov.ca) and implement Crown Commons licenses, which together would advance the objective of open government data by ensuring that public sector information is accessible online in usable formats, easily found, and not encumbered by restrictive Crown copyright licensing conditions."