Section 18 — Copyright Act: Copyright in sound recordings

Subject to subsection (2), the maker of a sound recording has a copyright in the sound recording, consisting of the sole right to do the following in relation to the sound recording or any substantial part thereof: to publish it for the first time, to reproduce it in any material form, and to rent it out, and to authorize any such acts. Subject to subsections (2.1) and (2.2), a sound recording maker’s copyright in the sound recording also includes the sole right to do the following acts in relation to the sound recording or any substantial part of it and to authorize any of those acts: to make it available to the public by telecommunication in a way that allows a member of the public to have access to it from a place and at a time individually chosen by that member of the public and to communicate it to the public by telecommunication in that way;

and if it is in the form of a tangible object, to sell or otherwise transfer ownership of the tangible object, as long as that ownership has never previously been transferred in or outside Canada with the authorization of the owner of the copyright in the sound recording. Subsection (1) applies only if at the time of the first fixation or, if that first fixation was extended over a considerable period, during any substantial part of that period, the maker of the sound recording was a Canadian citizen or permanent resident as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , was a citizen or permanent resident of a Berne Convention country, a Rome Convention country, a WPPT country or a country that is a WTO Member, or had its headquarters in one of those countries, in the case of a corporation; or the first publication of the sound recording in a quantity sufficient to satisfy the reasonable demands of the public occurred in any country referred to in paragraph (a). Subsection (1.1) applies if at the time of the first fixation or, if that first fixation was extended over a considerable period, during any substantial part of that period, the maker of the sound recording was a Canadian citizen or permanent resident as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , or had its headquarters in Canada, in the case of a corporation; or the first publication of the sound recording in a quantity sufficient to satisfy the reasonable demands of the public occurred in Canada. Subsection (1.1) also applies if at the time of the first fixation or, if that first fixation was extended over a considerable period, during any substantial part of that period, the maker of the sound recording was a citizen or permanent resident of a WPPT country, or had its headquarters in a WPPT country, in the case of a corporation; or the first publication of the sound recording in a quantity sufficient to satisfy the reasonable demands of the public occurred in a WPPT country. The first publication is deemed to have occurred in a country referred to in paragraph (2)(a) notwithstanding that it in fact occurred previously elsewhere, if the interval between those two publications does not exceed thirty days. The first publication of a sound recording is deemed to have occurred in a WPPT country, despite an earlier publication elsewhere, if the interval between the publication in that WPPT country and the earlier publication does not exceed 30 days.