What a Tangled World Wide Web We Weave: An Analysis of Linking under Canadian Copyright Law

Catherine Bate

ABSTRACT

The Internet has great potential as a medium for artists to reach a global audience. However, the very features that make the Internet so attractive may equally frustrate artists' ability to manage and protect their rights in their works. The Government of Canada has committed to consider modifications to the Copyright Act to address "digital copyright issues." Using a focused scenario involving the linking of images in HTML documents, the author examines how the current copyright regime applies in the context of the Internet. When analyzed through these facts, the author concludes that present law might find that one who browses the World Wide Web infringes the copyright of the person who has posted a work. Yet the current copyright law does not capture the actions of one who links to another's web site in order to incorporate the images created by that person into his or her own site without permission. The author canvasses the legal and public policy rationales underlying copyright, and concludes that this is an unsatisfactory conclusion. This article presents several alternative approaches to improving the law in this area and concludes with a proposal for how Parliament ought to address this situation in the upcoming rounds of reforms. As the World Wide Web continues to develop, a coherent and reasoned approach to copyright protection is essential to ensure that Canadian artists and copyright owners maximize the potential benefits of this global medium.

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Citation: (2002) 60(1) U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 21.
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