This review of the five 2012 decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada (known as the "Pentalogy") concludes that the Supreme Court got it mostly right in three cases dealing with a more technical interpretation of the statute, but failed in the other two, which were 5-4 splits. All five cases dealt with collective management of copyright in one form or another.

One particularly controversial case insisted that the rights of reproduction and communication to be the public were watertight and separate. This binary view superimposed by teh court on Canadian law contradicts decades of copyright policy and practice and is very difficult to reconcile the French version of the statute. The validity of explanation given by the Court's majority is scrutinized in the chapter..

FInally, in a case dealing with reprography, the court interpreted private research in a way that is hard to defend, while jettisoning many standard precedents, but the exact impact of the case is unclear because private research must also be "fair" to constitute fair dealing.