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61 Reforms to C-61, Day 49: Education Harms - Lessons May Require DRM

By Michael Geist

The conditions attached to the lesson provisions do not end with destroying lessons that use the exemption at the conclusion of the course.  There are two provisions that would appear to encourage (or possibly even require) the use of digital rights management to control the further distribution of these lessons. Section 30(5)(b) requires teachers to:

take measures that can reasonably be expected to limit the communication by telecommunication of the lesson to the persons referred to in paragraph (3)(a);

Section 30(5)(c) requires teachers to:

take, in relation to the communication by telecommunication of the lesson in digital form, measures that can reasonably be expected to prevent the students from fixing or reproducing the lesson, or communicating it other than as they may do under this section;

In other words, Bill C-61, which already covers a limited number of educational exemptions and establishes special liability for violating the Act with respect to these distance learning lessons, now requires to teachers to limit the communication of their lessons outside the circle of students enrolled in the class and stop students from "fixing" the lesson.  How do you that?  Given that these lessons are made available in electronic format, the obvious method is to use DRM.  Whether a court would be satisfied with a warning to students to not distribute outside the class, is a risk that few educational institutions are likely to take (in fact, Section 30(5)(d) indicates that further conditions may be established by regulation).

Full post as published by Michael Geist on August 28, 2008 (boomark / email).