Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42)

Marginal note:Prohibition — rights management information

• 41.22 (1) No person shall knowingly remove or alter any rights management information in electronic form without the consent of the owner of the copyright in the work, the performer’s performance or the sound recording, if the person knows or should have known that the removal or alteration will facilitate or conceal any infringement of the owner’s copyright or adversely affect the owner’s right to remuneration under section 19.

• Marginal note:Removal or alteration of rights management information

  (2) The owner of the copyright in a work, a performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or a sound recording is, subject to this Act, entitled to all remedies — by way of injunction, damages, accounts, delivery up and otherwise — that are or may be conferred by law for the infringement of copyright against a person who contravenes subsection (1).

• Marginal note:Subsequent acts

  (3) The copyright owner referred to in subsection (2) has the same remedies against a person who, without the owner’s consent, knowingly does any of the following acts with respect to any material form of the work, the performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or the sound recording and knows or should have known that the rights management information has been removed or altered in a way that would give rise to a remedy under that subsection:

  • (a) sells it or rents it out;

  • (b) distributes it to an extent that the copyright owner is prejudicially affected;

  • (c) by way of trade, distributes it, exposes or offers it for sale or rental or exhibits it in public;

  • (d) imports it into Canada for the purpose of doing anything referred to in any of paragraphs (a) to (c); or

  • (e) communicates it to the public by telecommunication.

• Marginal note:Definition of rights management information

  (4) In this section, rights management information means information that

  • (a) is attached to or embodied in a copy of a work, a performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or a sound recording, or appears in connection with its communication to the public by telecommunication; and

  • (b) identifies or permits the identification of the work or its author, the performance or its performer, the sound recording or its maker or the holder of any rights in the work, the performance or the sound recording, or concerns the terms or conditions of the work’s, performance’s or sound recording’s use.