| Sumario: | Difficulties stemming from the Imperial Copyright Act of 1842 led to Canada's Copyright Act of 1889. This innovation of the existing model of copyright law was an attempt to enact compulsory licensing, with recompense, of British copyrighted work. However, Canada's legislation was denied royal assent. The British government's desire for harmony with the United States, its conformity to international regulations of the day, and its penchant for uniformity throughout the Empire, took precedence over any legislation designed to meet Canada's particular needs. Sir John Thompson (1845–94) laboured for years to implement a Canadian copyright law that would adhere in principle to international cooperation while respecting the uniqueness of Canada's independent existence – an existence wedged between the geographical proximity of the United States and the cultural affinity to an imperial power. Examining some of the nineteenth-century correspondence pertaining to Canadian copyright makes a complex history much clearer. Embodying the social, technological, economic, geographic, and political elements of a society, the law is as capable of expressing innovative thought as it is of being bound by stagnation.
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