Remarks on technological neutrality in copyright law as a subject matter problem: Lessons from canada

Abstract

The paper argues that the principle of technological neutrality in copyright law is best grasped, not as a policy-driven imperative seeking to adapt copyright law to the exigencies of the digital environment, but rather as a principle immanent in the modern concept of copyright subject matter providing that merely technical or non-expressive uses of works of authorship do not attract liability. Technological neutrality is but a corollary of originality; that is, of the elementary proposition that copyright law protects original expression and nothing but original expression.