Ontario Court Dismisses Land Surveyors’ Class Action Copyright Proceeding against Teranet

The Ontario Superior Court (the Court) granted Teranet Inc’s (Teranet’s) motion for summary judgment in Keatley Surveying v Teranet (2016 ONSC 1717), deciding a long-standing dispute between land surveyors and Teranet, which manages Ontario’s electronic land registry system.

Keatley Surveying Ltd. brought the class proceedings on behalf of land surveyors whose land surveys were scanned and copied into Teranet’s online digital database. The surveyors alleged that Teranet’s actions constituted copyright infringement.

The Court found that copyright subsists in the plans of survey prepared by the land surveyors, and that Teranet made use of surveys in a manner that arguably violated the exclusive rights granted to the surveyors by the Copyright Act. However, the Court found that the provisions of the Ontario Registry Act and Land Titles Act made clear that when plans of survey are registered or deposited at the land registry office, the province takes ownership of the property in the works (including the right to make copies). Therefore, copyright in the land surveys belonged to the province at the time they were copied and distributed by Teranet, which was determinative of the dispute.

The Court did not have to decide more contentious issues raised in the proceeding, including whether Teranet’s use of the surveys qualified for the defence of “fair dealing”, or whether Section 12 of the Copyright Act operates to make the province the owner of copyright (a question which the Court answered “no” in obiter).

Summary By: David Bowden