Category: Copyright Collectives

By Posted on Posted in Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers 5 Comments

On May 15, 2012 the University of British Columbia announced that it would not sign a license agreement with Access Copyright, and immediately was inducted into Canada’s Fair Dealing Hall of Fame. “We believe we are taking the bolder, more principled and sustainable option, which best serves the fundamental and long-term interests of our academic community”, said David H. Farrar, Provost and Vice President Academic (Vancouver) and Doug Owram, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Principal (Okanagan). Yes, they did.

By Posted on Posted in Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers 4 Comments

While many in the library, research, and technology communities have hailed Google’s recent fair use victory, some have expressed skepticism about who is the real beneficiary of the ruling. Some librarians have wondered whether their enthusiasm about the ruling should not “be tempered by the understanding that Google is not the do-no-evil corporation it once represented itself as being?“

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Canada’s education system is facing a potentially-serious problem. While many educational institutions believe, correctly in my view, that they have better alternatives to comply with the Copyright Act than licenses from Access Copyright, Access Copyright continues to push for rulings that would allow it to impose itself on educators and, essentially, collect a hefty “education tax”–as it will inevitably be called–from Canada’s educational institutions. Access Copyright believes, incorrectly in my view, that a tariff approved by the Copyright Board can and will become mandatory on any institution that may be held liable for making a single infringing copy of a …

Ottawa, we have a problem Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives No Comments

The late L. Ray Patterson, a copyright scholar, historian, and the author of important books on the history of copyright and the notion of users’ rights, had warned that copyright guidelines could be the Trojan Horse of publishers. Patterson referred to a particular type of carelessly written guidelines, those purporting to offer “bright lines”, and provide them by creating unnecessary limitations on users’ rights. The danger, Patterson illustrated, is that guidelines stating that to copy “1,000” words is a fair use, [imply that] to copy “1,050” words is an infringement. …[I]f librarians go along with [such] guidelines, why should not …

The AUCC Guidelines: another Trojan Horse? Read more »

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The University of Toronto, who, together with the University of Western Ontario singed an infamous license agreement with Access Copyright last year, decided not to renew the agreement. In a letter dated June 6, 2013 UofT’s Vice President and Provost Cheryl Misak notified Access Copyright of its decision. Prof. Misak’s letter mentions “the passage of the Copyright Modernization Act, the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2012 copyright rulings, technological change, changes in the scholarly publishing world, and the broadening reach of open access initiatives (among other developments)” as reasons behind its decision. In making this decision UofT follows the footsteps of …

The University of Toronto Leaves Hall of Shame: On the Road to Deserved Fame Read more »