November 15, 2024 – Bill C-244, which permits the circumvention of a technological protection measure (TPM) if the circumvention is solely for the purpose of the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of certain types of products, received Royal Assent on November 7, 2024.
This amendment to the Copyright Act enshrines a user’s “right to repair”, allowing individuals and service providers the right to bypass, remove or deactivate anything that restricts their ability to repair their technical or electric devices. Often seen in home appliances and consumer electronics, technological protection measures lock consumers out of their owned products, making it impossible to repair or maintain them without intervention from the manufacturer. Not only does this interfere with an individual’s ownership rights over their devices, it often forces people into unnecessary purchases, as consumers are often forced to replace devices rather than see them repaired.
The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) welcomes any policy or legislative change that increases a user’s ability to access and use their goods. As law professor and co-founder of the Canadian Repair Coalition, Anthony Rosborough, wrote in his response to the passing of this bill, there are currently “very limited grounds under which it is lawful to bypass or “circumvent” a TPM in Canada.” We are encouraged to see the government recognize the need to provide legal assurances that it is appropriate to circumvent a TPM in cases where a user’s rights may otherwise be unduly constrained.
Given the increased reliance on TPMs by manufacturers of all technology-enabled products, CARL encourages the government to consider other types of consumer products where a user’s ability to access their legally-obtained goods is unduly constrained and asks that this lawful circumvention of TPMs be further extended to ensure that libraries and other memory institutions can fully rely on their rights as enumerated in the Copyright Act, particularly with respect to ebooks and DVDs.
More specifically, CARL calls for the government to amend Section 41 of the Copyright Act to make it clear that circumvention of TPMs is only illegal for acts that are an infringement of copyright.
