Stationers

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away there was a country named Broadviewlandia. The name Broadviewlandia had been adopted to symbolize that country’s hopes for a new bright future, as Broadviewlandia was slowly emerging from several centuries of feudal social order. Like in many ex-feudal societies, very few books were written in Broadviewlandia and even fewer were published, and the ones that existed were limited, expansive, and beyond the reach of almost all Broadviewlanders.

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers

On May 29, 2014 the Quill & Quire published an article with the sensational title “Why the loss of Access Copyright royalties could be devastating for educational publishers”, which advances the thesis and leads the reader to the supposedly inescapable conclusion that the decision of many educational institutions to sever their ties with Access Copyright has already wreaked havoc with publishers and will continue to be. This is a second of a series of posts in which why these thesis and conclusions do not hold up to scrutiny. Part 1 examined the main smoking gun in the Q&Q article, the claimed …

The Loss of Access Copyright Royalties and the Effect on Publishers: Sifting Fact from Fiction (Part 2) Read more →

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers

On May 29, 2014 the Quill & Quire published an article with the sensational title “Why the loss of Access Copyright royalties could be devastating for educational publishers”. Julie Baldassi, the Q&Q staff reporter who wrote the article, advances the thesis and leads the reader to the supposedly inescapable conclusion (despite occasionally inserting words such as “perhaps” or “could”) that the decision of many educational institutions to sever their ties with Access Copyright has already wreaked havoc with publishers and will continue to be. This is a first of a series of posts in which I examine that thesis and conclusions to …

The Loss of Access Copyright Royalties and the Effect on Publishers: Sifting Fact from Fiction (Part 1) Read more →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, My Research, Stationers

The Competition Bureau announced today that it has signed a consent decree with the four major book publishers, which is expected to lower the price of ebooks in Canada. According to the Bureau’s media release, the agreement between the Bureau and Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster follows an 18-month investigation into the ebook industry in Canada.

Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers

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The Varsity last Monday published a story with the headline “Post-Access Copyright era off to a rocky start“, and the sub-headline “Professors confused, frustrated by new copyright rules”. Great headlines, for sure, but in reality, that’s probably an exaggeration. My impression, which I have confirmed with colleagues in the UofT library system and the Faculty Association, is that so far the transition to the post-Access Copyright era has actually been even smoother than expected.

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, 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, they did.

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers

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?“

Blog, Copyright, Stationers

Google has won an important victory today. In a ruling issued this morning, US Circuit Judge Denny Chin ruled in favour of Google, finding that its scanning of millions of books in its Google Books project is fair use. “In my view”, Judge Chin wrote “Google Books provides significant public benefits. It advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders.

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, Copyright Collectives, Stationers

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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 →

Antitrust / Competition Law, Blog, Copyright, My Research, Stationers

I love the UofT library system. For me it’s no wonder it has been ranked again as one of the top three research libraries in North America. And if that’s not enough the library is launching a new catalog that will make its already user-friendly catalog easy to use on all devices from smart phones to desktops. If that’s not good enough, let me tell you a less-known fact about the library. Since 2005 the library has been collaborating with the Internet Archive, quietly digitizing thousands of public domain materials and making them freely accessible to all. I don’t know the …

Isn’t that great? Read more →