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Literary Criticism Books & Reading

For the Encouragement of Learning

The Origins of Canadian Copyright Law

by (author) Myra Tawfik

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2023
Category
Books & Reading, Canadian, Legal Education
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487545246
    Publish Date
    Apr 2023
    List Price
    $90.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487545253
    Publish Date
    Apr 2023
    List Price
    $90.00

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Description

For the Encouragement of Learning addresses the contested history of copyright law in Canada, where the economic and reputational interests of authors and the commercial interests of publishers often conflict with the public interest in access to knowledge. It chronicles Canada’s earliest copyright law to explain how pre-Confederation policy-makers understood copyright’s normative purpose.

 

Using government and private archives and copyright registration records, Myra Tawfik demonstrates that the nineteenth-century originators of copyright law intended to promote the advancement of learning in schools by encouraging the mass production of educational material. The book reveals that copyright laws were integral features of British North American education policy and highlights the important roles played by teachers, education reformers, and politicians in the emergence and development of the laws. It also explains how policy-makers began to consider the relationship between copyright and cultural identity formation once British interference into domestic copyright affairs increased, and as Canadian Confederation neared. Using methodologies at the intersection of legal history and book history, For the Encouragement of Learning embeds the copyright legal framework within the history of Canada’s book and print culture.

About the author

Myra Tawfik is a professor of law and the EPICentre Professor of IP Commercialization and Strategy at the University of Windsor. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. She is an expert in IP law, especially copyright, trademarks, confidential information / trade secrets and industrial designs.

Myra Tawfik's profile page