The Co-option of Copyright: An Evolution of Copyright Paradigms and the Forces Impacting Canadian Policy in the Digital Era

Copyright is a legal concept based on the bifurcation of rights over the expression of ideas, granted by the legislature to connected stakeholders. The juxtaposition of rights form a framework designed to encourage dissemination of such products to further social and cultural goals while simultaneously providing incentives for innovation. Copyright shares a philosophical foundation with traditional property rights and ownership paradigms. Despite the dichotomies between tangible and intangible property, rightholders have gained support for, and control of, overarching monopoly protections using rhetoric based on their co-option of theoretical models. Control has engendered artificial scarcity of cultural products, and the emergence of new content delivery platforms have sustainedly challenged the control model. A global shift towards copyright policy uniformity has resulted in a universally skewed framework that is in need of attention.;It is suggested that to achieve optimality within copyright's parameters, a balancing of all stakeholder interests is crucial. While this view has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada, persistent challenges to a copyright framework constructed upon balance and inclusivity continue to arise. This includes Parliament's ongoing struggle to balance the public interest and creators' rights while aligning Canada's copyright law with emerging international norms. This thesis considers how the debate has become framed so as to deflect attention from the balance that is being lost through rhetoric, devolution of control and the commodification copyright.