If so, are you also asking yourself, “How does it affect me – as an author, creator, or copyright owner?” or perhaps, “How does it affect me – as an educator, researcher, or user?”.

Bill C-32 is an amendment to the current Copyright Act in Canada and recognized as the Copyright Modernization Act. As announced by the Government of Canada in early June 2010, here is the backgrounder [in part] from the Balanced Copyright website of the Government of Canada:

“[T]he Government of Canada reiterated its commitment to strengthening laws governing intellectual property and copyright in order “to encourage new ideas and protect the rights of Canadians whose research, development and artistic creativity contribute to Canada’s prosperity”. The bill follows through on this commitment.”

“In the summer of 2009, the government launched an eight-week national consultation on copyright modernization. Thousands of Canadians, businesses and stakeholder organizations shared their ideas on how to best adapt Canada’s copyright framework to the digital age. What the government heard is that Canada needs new laws that are fair and balanced for today’s content creators and users and adaptable to respond to the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.”

Would you like to know more about Bill C-32?

See news releases and resource links about Bill C-32 listed at the end of this blog post.

Above Image Courtesy of: Balanced Copyright – Government of Canada

Above excerpt in italics is courtesy of Balanced Copyright – Government of Canada website.

News Releases:

• June 2, 2010 — Canada’s Bill C-32: The Copyright Modernization Act
• June 2, 2010 — Canadian Chamber welcomes government bill to modernize Copyright Act
• June 7, 2010 — CARL Commends Government on Copyright Bill

Resource Links:

• Parliament of Canada — Direct Access to Bill C-32 – Copyright Modernization Act
• Balanced Copyright — Fact Sheets, Questions and Answers, and Copyright Glossary
• UBC Library — Access Copyright
• Copyrightlaws.com — copyright, licensing, and digital property – an overview of Bill C-32 on Canadian Copyright Reform
• Michael Geist — Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law – an internationally syndicated columnist [and law professor at U. of Ottawa] on technology law issues

Did you know? In the ranking of world digital repositories, UBC features at #43.

The “Ranking Web of World repositories” is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.

The Cybermetrics Lab, part of the CCHS – CSIC, is devoted to the quantitative analysis of the Internet and Web contents specially those related to the processes of generation and scholarly communication of scientific knowledge. The Cybermetrics Lab using quantitative methods has designed and applied indicators that allow us to measure the scientific activity on the Web.

Above Image Courtesy of: Ranking Web of World Repositories – Spanish Research Council

Above excerpt in italics is courtesy of Ranking Web of World Repositories website – Ranking Web of World Repositories: Top 800 Institutional Repositories