As technology has made distributing information easier than ever, more people are concerned about copyright law. How does copyright impact you?
The resources on this page were hand-picked by the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta's staff as a good place to start.
CPLEA Suggested Resources
Not sure where to begin finding answers to your questions. Get started with our suggested resources. See additional resources below for more information.
Canada/Federal
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), a Special Operating Agency (SOA) associated with Industry Canada, is responsible for the administration and processing of the greater part of intellectual property in Canada. Topics covered include: Patents, Trade-marks, Copyright, Industrial designs, and Integrated circuit topographies.
This booklet gives teachers user-friendly information on copyright law, combining items from the Canadian Copyright Act and its regulations, contractual and tariff arrangements with copyright collectives, and court decisions. Much of the information would also be of interest to general audiences. [2005, pdf - 25 pages]
Now that the highly anticipated new copyright legislation has been introduced, more and more librarians are hearing from concerned library users that copyright laws must reflect the public interest. As the voice of the community of library users and professionals, CLA is committed to getting the crucial message to government that copyright issues do indeed strike a chord with Canadians.
This guide provides a general road map of some of the legal issues specific to podcasting with an emphasis on identifying how those issues may apply in the Canadian legal environment. This guide covers only Canadian-based legal questions. (PDF - 31 pages, 2007)
This page points to resources about copyright and patents across the WIPO website, which may be of particular interest to students ranging from upper elementary to university. Resources for younger students include a set of comic books.
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