MUMBAI: In April this year, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper released the 433-page Economic Action Plan 2015 for the country, in which it stated that Canada plans to extend the copyright term of protection for sound recordings and performances from 50 to 70 years. However, CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) has raised a question around this stating that the pro-intellectual property measures will "fail to remedy the shortfall in authors’ term of protection."

Commenting in this "shortfall," CISAC president Jean Michel Jarre said, "Authors in Canada still do not benefit from the same term of copyright protection as in most of the world, where protection for authors extends to 70 years after their death, while in Canada the term of protection for authors expires 50 years after the author’s death. This puts the whole community of creators in Canada, as well as foreigners seeking protection in Canada, at a major disadvantage.

Jarre further added, "On behalf of CISAC and the four million creators represented by its members, I call upon the Canadian government to address this imbalance and immediately bring Canada’s law in line with the rest of the world. Authors in Canada should be protected for the same duration that exists in most other countries around the world. This is a matter of pure fairness."

The statement issued by CISAC stated that Canadian copyright law protects authors for the period of their life plus 50 years after the author’s death which is unlike most countries in the world. Meanwhile, according to the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 in India, the protection is for 60 years (post death).In the European Union, the term of copyright protection for authors, as established by Directive 2006/116/CE, runs for the life of the author plus 70 years after death. Outside the EU, the US, Australia, and most other countries offer protection that extends beyond 50 years after the author’s death, with some countries granting protection of life + 100 years.