Category: Featured

By Posted on Posted in Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured

The University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) has recently sent a letter to UofT’s Provost and Vice President questioning the decision to sign a license agreement with Access Copyright. UTFA’s letter raises many concerns that have already been shared on this blog and by others. UTFA asks the Provost to “clarify the Administration’s interpretation of the scope of fair dealing rights and any plans by your office to advocate publicly for an expansive interpretation of these rights in higher education in Canada. This might include, for instance, any plans you have to revisit the new contract in light of pending …

UofT Faculty Association Questions the Access Copyright Agreement Read more »

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

One of the questions that troubles many Canadian universities who need to decide whether to accept Access Copyright offer-that-they-can’t-refuse is what will be the consequences of not signing the AUCC-brokered Model License. One fear, which I have addressed in an earlier post, concerns the risk of being liable for copyright infringement in case that some infringing copies would be made on campus. The other fear is the possibility that the Copyright Board will approve Access Copyright’s Proposed Tariff, and that upon its approval, would become mandatory and retroactive. The precise effect of an approved tariff is a novel question and …

Keep Calm, Opt Out, and Carry On Read more »

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

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, you are. Universities who decided to sign a letter-of-intent to sign a license agreement with Access Copyright but have not yet signed the agreement …

Fair Dealing’s Halls of F/Sh/ame Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Featured, Stationers

In April 2008, three publishers, Cambridge University Press, SAGE Publications, and Oxford University Press, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Georgia State University, alleging that GSU infringed their copyrights by allowing professors to upload excerpts from books onto the university’s electronic reserve system (ERes). The complaint alleged “systematic, widespread, and unauthorized copying and distribution of a vast amount of copyrighted works”, and argued that GSU “has facilitated, enabled, encouraged, and induced Georgia State professors to upload and post to these systems – and Georgia State students simultaneously to download, view, print, copy, and distribute – many, if not all, of …

The GSU Copyright Case: Some Canadian Perspectives Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Blog, Copyright, Featured

Today is Israel’s Independence Day, and coincidentally, Consumers International published a report ranking countries according to how well their intellectual property laws serve the public. This year, Israel ranks #1. I’m usually skeptical about these types of rankings because the law is a very complex social phenomenon, but today I’ll stick to Independence Day’s celebratory mood. Still, I’m quite familiar with Israel’s IP laws, and how they compare to those of other countries such as Canada and the US, and I’m not surprised at all by the this report’s result: the public-interest orientation of IP law in Israel is deeply …

Israel Ranks #1 On How Well Its IP Laws Serve The Public: Happy Independence Day Read more »