Regional integration is a political process, embedded in a network of domestic, global and regional treaties, institutions, organizations and politics. Copyright policy provides an ideal lens through which to examine the distinctive development of North American integration. Like regional integration, copyright policy, which is moving to the centre of the global political economy, involves the interplay of cultural, economic and political interests and forces at the subnational, national, regional and global levels. Significantly, U.S. business and government have been driving the debate on this issue, pushing for very restrictive copyright regimes. In North America, despite copyright’s inclusion in regional agreements like the NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, all three countries’ involvement in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties, and strong American pressure on Canada and Mexico, each country continues to pursue distinctive national copyright policies. Using Canada as a North American case study, this paper examines the evolution of Canadian copyright policy in response to domestic, global and regional pressures. With specific reference to Canada’s non-implementation of the 1996 WIPO Internet Treaties, which formed the basis for the controversial U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, this paper examines the changing roles of the state, business and civil society in the development of copyright policy. In doing so, it will illustrate the limits to and possibilities for regional integration, including ways in which greater democratic oversight in the regional-integration process can realistically be pursued.

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Blayne Haggart
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