The Copyright Act ⁽²⁾ (the Act) provides a protective legal framework with the following essential principles:

• The system of protections set out in the Act applies to original works such as literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works and compilations of such works.

• The originality required for a work to qualify for protection under the Act means that it cannot be the result of reproducing someone else's work.

• The protection of a work is automatic in the sense that, as soon as the work has been created and fixed on any kind of medium such as a manuscript, a record or a server, the work is protected with no obligation to register it in an official register. Registration with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is optional.

• The system of protections does not apply to ideas. It protects the expression of those ideas. This applies to all categories of works protected by the Act. Accordingly, a game is protected by the Act only because it represents one or more categories of works and not because of its rules or the way it works.

• The author of a protected work is the first owner of the copyright (also known as the economic or pecuniary rights) thereof and also enjoys moral rights.

• Economic rights are exclusive rights that give owners the power to authorize or prohibit the use of their works and to negotiate remuneration for their use. Their applications include publication, reproduction, adaptation, communication to the public by broadcasting, and the public performance of a work or a substantial part thereof. They can be held by the author or by anyone to whom they have been transferred.

• The Act contains very specific provisions regarding ownership and transfer of economic rights. It is not sufficient to obtain a verbal authorization to incorporate a work or a substantial part thereof into your product.

• The Act provides that in some cases the rights of authors will be administered by collectives (the collective management mechanism). In this connection it provides that the user fees (royalties) for works thus administered will be approved by the Copyright Board.

• But be careful! Though the Act establishes a legal framework for negotiations, it does not establish the price to be paid! The laws of supply and demand and the comparative weights of the negotiating parties will determine the price.

• Moral rights relate to the authorship and the integrity of the work, as well as the right to use it in association with a product or a cause. Since they are seen as an extension of the personality of the author, they cannot be transferred. In Canada, however, the author can waive moral rights.

• Since 1997, the Act has recognized the rights of record producers in their sound recordings, of performers in their performances, and of broadcasters in transmissions by electromagnetic waves (these are also known as "neighbouring rights"). Only the first two categories are of interest to the multimedia producer.

• The Act provides for a certain number of civil and criminal remedies in cases where copyrights are infringed, such as injunction, damages, punitive damages and fines.

• By virtue of Canada's membership in international conventions, more particularly the Berne Convention on copyrights and the Rome Convention on neighbouring rights, most of the fundamental principles in these matters are common to all treaty countries. In order to determine applicable rights under the national treatment rule, we refer to the protective laws in effect in the country where protection is sought. If you plan to exploit your multimedia product worldwide, you will have to make sure that you comply with the maximum protection provisions in all countries when you seek to clear rights.