The Copyright Board and Tribunals Process: Users in the Balance

The wholesale adoption of copyright collective management as public policy tool has had an extraordinary impact on the information landscape. The unfettered expansion of collective rights organizations throughout the 20th century has resulted in increased social costs and a burgeoning bureaucracy surrounding the collective use of rights. This thesis considers the role of copyright tribunals within that process, and more importantly within a critical historical frame. While some work has been done with respect to copyright tribunals and their role in the policy process, none of it has considered the tribunals within a critical frame. This thesis considers those agencies, and the Copyright Board of Canada in particular, within the context of their initial creation as oversight on copyright collectives, their subsequent regulatory practice and their current role within the larger policy frame. Utilizing Antonio Gramsci’s conception of hegemony, the thesis views the current capture of those agencies as a further indication of the growing hegemony surrounding copyright in general and collective management regimes in particular.