Intellectual property and copyright

This guide explores what copyright is, the registration process and the benefits of registration. It is not intended as a complete text on Canadian law regarding copyright or a substitute for advice from a legal professional knowledgeable in the area of intellectual property. (Description taken from the website)

CARFAC (Canadian Artists' Representation/le Front des artistes canadiens) is incorporated federally as a non-profit corporation that is the national voice of Canada's visual artists. Its objectives are to promote a socio-economic climate that is conducive to the production of visual arts in Canada, to promote the visual arts in Canada, and to conduct research and to engage in public education for these purposes. (Description taken from the website)

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. (Description taken from the website)

Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) available in HTML, XML, and PDF format on the Justice Canada Web site.

The Copyright Board of Canada is an economic regulatory body empowered to establish, either mandatorily or at the request of an interested party, the royalties to be paid for the use of copyrighted works, when the administration of such copyright is entrusted to a collective-administration society. (Description taken from the website)

This booklet gives teachers user-friendly information about copyright law and copyright collectives and how they relate to the use of resources in the classroom. (Description taken from the website)

Traditional knowledge (TK) is a living body of knowledge passed on from generation to generation within a community. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides a global policy forum, where governments, intergovernmental organizations, industry groups and civil society come together to address evolving intellectual property (IP) issues. (Description taken from the website)

The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project is a seven-year international research initiative based at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. Our work explores the rights, values, and responsibilities of material culture, cultural knowledge and the practice of heritage research. (Description taken from the website)

The Interoperability of Data for Electronic Commerce Systems (INDECS) framework was created by many organizations involved in the creation and management of digital content, for the purpose of supporting electronic commerce and the management of intellectual property rights. This model can be used to describe and identify intellectual property, the parties involved in the exchange of intellectual property, and the agreements between them.

MPEG-21 is a multimedia framework, developed by the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG), is designed to "enable transparent and augmented use of multimedia resources across a wide range of networks and devices used by different communities". It has a similar function to METS, in that it provides a framework for structuring sets of metadata and files representing complex digital resources (in particular, audio and video files). MPEG-21 includes a Rights Expression Language and a structure for a data dictionary. It allows the integration of the processes required to generate, manipulate, use, manage, and deliver multimedia files. MPEG-21 includes elements to support identification and description of digital resources, handling and usage of content, intellectual property management and protection, etc. It is intended to be machine-actionable (able to be used with hardware and software that will enforce licence provisions).

Access the 2007 World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Guide on Managing Intellectual Property for Museums.

The Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS)—a cooperative, multi-industry initiative — provides a system that clearly defines and categorizes image usage around the world, from granting and acquiring licenses to tracking and managing them well into the future. Through standardized language, a machine-readable coding architecture and a global Registry, image licenses become more transparent, more fair, and much simpler for everyone. (Description taken from the website)

The Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec's (RAAV) primary mission is to work towards improving the living conditions and professional practice of Quebec's visual artists. If you are a painter, sculptor, printmaker, art photographer, illustrator—in other words, a visual artist in Quebec—the RAAV is your professional association. (Description translated from the website) Available in French only.

The Society for Reproduction Rights for Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) is a collective management society within the meaning of the Copyright Act. It grants licences for all reproductions of musical and artworks. SODRAC represents authors, composers, music publishers and creators and co-creators of artistic works. Our society also represents heirs of rights, titles and interests in a work following an author's death. (Description taken from the website)