Copyright bill finally clears Commons

The Harper government's long-awaited copyright reforms have finally cleared the House of Commons.

Bill C-11 passed its final vote at third reading just before 11 p.m. on Monday night, by a vote of 158-135.

The billwasintroduced in the Senate immediately, and is expected to speed through all stagesofreview there, thanks to the Conservative majority. The changes are expected to become law before the start of the summer recess.

The bill has wide implications for the production, sale, distribution and consumption of digital content, including music, video, electronic books and software. It allows consumers to make copies or backups of copyrighted work for personal use, but includes provisions for "digital locks" that would allow rights holders to restrict or prohibit copying, even for personal use.

It alsoprohibits the circumvention ofthosedigital locks and sets fines for personal violations of copyright.

When C-11 was introduced last fall, Heritage Minister James Moore said he wasre-introducing the exact same legislation that died on the order paperwhen the 2011 federal election was called to take advantage of the hours of committee study that had already gone into reviewing the previous bill.

The legislation was reviewed again by a special Commons committee designated especially for the task of reviewing often complex provisions.

Conservative MPs brought forwardeight amendmentsand used their majority on the committee to pass them.The amendments were mostly technical, in some cases bringing the bill more in line with industry standards.

The Conservatives used time allocation motionforthe second timeon the bill to advance it through to its final vote on Monday night.

Copyright reforms a trade issue

The reforms have been a long time coming. The Copyright Act hasn't been updated since 1997, beforemany of the digital technologies now widely-used by Canadian individuals, artistsand businesses were even invented.

The slow pace of updating copyright laws in Canada was perceived as an irritant to Canada's trading partners, including the European Union and the United States.

Passage of the billwas seen as an important pre-requisite for Canada'sinclusion in the burgeoning Trans-Pacific Partnership. An announcement about Canada's full participation inTPP negotiationscould come at the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico on Tuesday.

Property rights holders in the U.S. lobbied for C-11 to go even farther than its current provisions, but Mooredefends C-11 as striking a reasonable balance between the rights of content creators and users.

Before the final vote on Tuesday, Moore called the changes "great for consumers" and reminded reporters of the artists who had spoken in support of strengthening copyright rules.

"Thepassage of this copyright legislation is going to be really important for us to continue to expand our opportunities to have more jobs through international trade," the heritage minister said.