What’s happening with copyright? Here’s an overview of the significant events from the past few years to help you get a clearer picture.
2012 amendments
In 2012, the federal government extended the concept of fair dealing to include the education sector. At that point, writers, publishers and visual artists made it clear to our elected officials that the additional exception would have serious consequences for the arts and culture sector.
The notion of fair dealing for education purposes was not clearly defined in the Copyright Act and many educational institutions decided to interpret it more broadly so they could pay as few royalties as possible to authors and their publishers.
Since then, educational institutions outside Quebec have been reproducing Canadian content on a massive scale without obtaining permission and without paying compensation. In Quebec, royalties have plummeted.
Consequences
The annual royalties paid to authors and publishers have plunged 50% in Quebec universities and nearly 20% in CEGEPs. Elsewhere in Canada, the drop has been in the 80% range. A large number of Quebec authors have been penalized by this situation.
The result was an increase in the number of lawsuits concerning copyright, such as the one between Copibec and Université Laval. Fortunately for everyone involved, an out-of-court settlement was reached in that case.
In the other provinces, the educational institutions have refused to negotiate with Access Copyright, which is the equivalent of Copibec outside Quebec. Despite a federal court ruling in favour of Access Copyright against York University for copyright infringement, York is still refusing to pay authors and publishers and has appealed the decision.
User licences ensure that authors and their publishers are paid royalties for the use of their content in educational institutions. It’s worth mentioning that those licences account for less than 1% of the institutions’ annual operating budgets.
Parliamentary committee reports
In 2017, federal ministers Mélanie Joly and Navdeep Singh Bains instructed the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) to proceed with the five-year review of the Copyright Act. That committee then assigned the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC) to conduct a study on the compensation models for artists and creators.
Copibec appeared before both those committees and submitted two briefs explaining how urgent it was to review and amend the Act so that it would be more favourable for creators.
In May 2019, the CHPC Committee tabled its Shifting Paradigms report. Copibec was satisfied with the recommendations made by the Committee, which recognized the need to correct the Act and adjust the compensation model for artists and creators.
In June 2019, the arts and culture sector finally had the opportunity to read the INDU Committee’s report. The Committee’s conclusions contrasted sharply with those from the previous report. The recommendations were vague and a wait-and-see approach was taken when it came to concrete steps to restore a balance between copyright owners and content users. The community of authors and publishers was justifiably disappointed with the report.
However, Copibec was pleased that the report dismissed the fair dealing claims made by universities and education ministries outside Quebec. In particular, the Committee indicated that licensing was the best way forward and noted that the fair dealing policies put into effect by educational institutions had not been recognized in court and did not comply with the analysis of section 29 of the Copyright Act.
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