Leah Hachey

Intellectual Property (IP) crime, copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting, is a growing international phenomenon that generates huge losses for legitimate industry, the economy and the Government of Canada. What is a trade-mark? A trade-mark is a word (or words), a design, or a combination of these, used to identify the goods or services of one person or organization.

Copyright grants the sole and exclusive right to create and recreate a work whether wholly or substantially. It also includes the sole rights to:  publish the work if unpublished  perform the work in public  to produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work,  in the case of a dramatic work, to convert it into a novel or other non-dramatic work,  in the case of a novel or other non-dramatic work, or of an artistic work, to convert it into a dramatic work, by way of performance in public or otherwise,  in the case of a literary, dramatic or musical work, to make any sound recording, cinematograph film or other contrivance by means of which the work may be mechanically reproduced or performed,  in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to reproduce, adapt and publicly present the work as a cinematographic work,  in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to communicate the work to the public by telecommunication,  to present at a public exhibition, for a purpose other than sale or hire, an artistic work created after June 7, 1988, other than a map, chart or plan,  in the case of a computer program that can be reproduced in the ordinary course of its use, other than by a reproduction during its execution in conjunction with a machine, device or computer, to rent out the computer program, and  in the case of a musical work, to rent out a sound recording in which the work is embodied, and to authorize any such acts.

The copyright of an artist's work is owned directly by the artist in most cases with the exception of engravings, photographs, portraits, and works created in the course of employment. Furthermore, these rights can be alienated through assignment and licenses. An artist's moral rights, however, are inalienable and stay with the artist their entire lives. As with copyrights, moral rights are inheritable.

According to section 34(4) of the copyright act, specific penalties will be decided by the court. Section 35(1) states that an infringer is liable for the financial gain made through infringement, and "such damages to the owner of the copyright as the owner has suffered due to the infringement" A copyright holder can instead elect to protect his/her copyright under section 38, which allows for "a sum of not less than $500 or more than $20,000 as the court considers just." There are three categories of remedies to copyright infringement. They are Border, Civil, and Criminal. Border enables Customs to detain infringing materials at the border. Civil allows the copyright holder to take direct action against a person or company who violates his or her rights. Criminal is used when it is too costly to sue or to stop or try to dissuade people from committing the act again.