University group criticised over copyright deal

The group that speaks for Canadian universities signed a copyright agreement last month that critics say is one of the most expensive copyright policies in Canadian history.

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and Access Copyright, a not-for-profit organisation that distributes fees collected to authors and publishers, announced on 16 April that they had successfully negotiated a model licence to allow universities to reproduce copyright-protected materials.

The deal will see universities pay a flat rate of CA$26 (US$26.10) per full-time student. Under the pre-existing agreement, universities paid CA$3.38 per student plus 10 cents per page copied.

It is up to individual universities to decide whether to sign the new agreement with Access Copyright. Over the past year, a number of Canadian universities have functioned without an agreement, relying instead on materials available through electronic databases and open access licencing.

One of the AUCC’s main goals in renegotiating the agreement was to reduce the administrative burden on universities.

During negotiations, AUCC President Paul Davidson argued in an op-ed in the Ottawa political newspaper, The Hill Times, that requiring universities to complete lengthy surveys and report on their copying was unnecessary in the digital age.

“There is no equivalent to these costly administrative burdens in the digital licensing agreements that universities have negotiated over the past decade with academic publishers,” he wrote.

“These agreements provide faculty members and students with access to digital works in each publisher’s database and broad rights to copy these works. Many academic publishers have bypassed Access Copyright because they do not need a ‘middleman’ to license their works in the digital environment.”

So when the AUCC and Access Copyright released the model licence last month, critics were quick to question why an agreement was even necessary.

“Universities already pay millions of dollars for [electronic database] licences with the money flowing to database companies, publishers and authors,” wrote Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

“Add public domain works, fair dealing, hundreds of millions spent on textbooks and pay-per-use licences for the remaining works and the decision to forgo an Access Copyright licence becomes easy to understand.”

Critics pointed out that the agreement expanded on what is normally considered copying; most notably, it requires payment for uses such as posting a hyperlink to a digital copy.

Jocelyn Thompson, president of the Atlantic Provinces Library Association, argued that this contradicts a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision and is essentially requiring payment for rights already granted under existing copyright legislation.

“There are provisions within the act such as fair dealing that have allowed faculty and students to copy works without permission or payment,” she wrote in a widely circulated letter. “If institutions agree to the model licence, they will be paying for already existing rights, or paying double for extended rights.”

The timing of the model licence also struck critics as odd, as new copyright legislation that extends the rights of educators is expected to be passed into law by the federal government this summer.

Yet, Access Copyright and the AUCC maintain that the agreement represents an important compromise between the needs of universities and those of authors and publishers.

“We believe that this negotiated agreement provides a successful outcome for universities, their students and faculty,” Davidson said. “It provides long-term certainty on price and access to a new range of digital materials.”