CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES
CARL Honours Ariel Katz and Howard Knopf with Award of Merit

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is pleased to present Ariel Katz and Howard Knopf with the CARL Award of Merit, which is conferred on individuals who have made outstanding local, regional, or national contributions within an area of research librarianship and whose contributions have had broad and beneficial impact within the CARL community.

In recognition of their long-standing, dedicated work to defend educational fair dealing and a non-mandatory tariff regime in Canada, Ariel Katz and Howard Knopf were presented with the Award of Merit at a ceremony in Ottawa during the CARL Fall General Meeting.

"In their own work and in collaboration with CARL, [Ariel Katz and Howard Knopf] have played critical roles in defending universities' rights to manage copyright, including guiding users' exercise of fair dealing without being subject to a mandatory tariff regime by a copyright collective, and in defending user rights as a whole. In my years as a CARL library director, on the CARL Board, and as Chair of the Policy Committee, I was continually impressed with their expertise, collaborative spirit, and dedication to the public good." - Martha Whitehead, Vice President for the Harvard Library and University Librarian

Howard Knopf is Counsel with Maybee and Rideout LLB, in Ottawa and was CARL's legal counsel for our intervention at the Supreme Court of Canada in the York University v. Access Copyright case. He has worked mainly in the areas of copyright, trademarks, cyberlaw, competition and related issues, served as the Chair of the Copyright Policy Committee of the Canadian Bar Association, and was advisor to the Law Commission of Canada on security interests in intellectual property. As an adjunct professor of law, he frequently lectures at the invitation of the judiciary, government officials, law schools, continuing legal education fora, the World Intellectual Property Organization and various NGO's, including the Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs. He has published extensively, both as author and editor. Since 2000, he has been a member of the faculty of the Fordham Annual Conference on International Intellectual Property Law and Policy. As one of Canada's premier experts in copyright law, he has appeared before the Copyright Board, the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal, the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada, and maintains a blog on copyright law.

Howard continues to engage in dialogue with CARL on various matters related to copyright and other policy areas, often on a pro-bono or reduced rate basis as we explore the possibility of bringing together collective voices on intellectual property issues of national importance.

Ariel Katz is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. Professor Katz received his LL.B. and LL.M from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his SJD from the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, Professor Katz was a staff attorney at the Israeli Antitrust Authority.  His academic research involves economic analysis of competition law and intellectual property law, with allied interests in electronic commerce, pharmaceutical regulation, the regulation of international trade, and particularly the intersection of these fields. Between 2009 and 2012 Professor Katz was the Director of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy.

During this time, Professor Katz, Howard Knopf and David Lametti intervened in the Supreme Court of Canada CBC vs. SODRAC case that ruled against the notion of imposing royalty fees for broadcast-incidental copies, stating that such a practice was unreasonable, and quoting Ariel Katz in part of the decision.

Professor Katz currently teaches courses on intellectual property, cyberlaw, and the intersection of competition law and intellectual property, and shares some of his current thoughts on these issues on his blog.

On August 3, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada released its ruling in the Access Copyright v. York University case in favour of universities, which affirmed that a tariff is not mandatory and, thus, gives universities the freedom to clear their copyright obligations for literary works without involving Access Copyright. The ruling in the case used a direct quote from the factum Howard Knopf drafted for CARL, referencing Professor Katz's writings.

When it comes to the mandatoriness of copyright tariffs in Canada, it is undeniable that Ariel Katz's articles "Spectre: Canadian Copyright and the Mandatory Tariff," (Parts I and II) published in two parts in 2015 in the Intellectual Property Journal, have played an important role in recent years in persuading the courts that such tariffs are not in fact mandatory.

CARL would like to congratulate Ariel Katz and Howard Knopf on this very well-deserved award and thank them for their ongoing support of CARL's advocacy initiatives in this arena.