Copibec is proud to be celebrating its 20th anniversary by announcing that our agreement with the Quebec Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur (MEES) has been renewed. The agreement covers copyright-protected documents reproduced in educational institutions at the preschool, elementary and high school levels as well as adult education centres and vocational training centres. By signing this new agreement, the ministry has reconfirmed its support for collective rights management ensuring easier access to content and has reaffirmed the right of authors and publishers to be given a fair share when their works are used.

Over the years, despite changes in ruling parties, numerous Cabinet reshuffles and unfavourable trends in other provinces, Quebec’s ministry of education has steered a steady course and given concrete support to the work done by creators. Under the new three-year agreement that runs from 2017 to 2020, the ministry will pay Copibec a total of $14,244,924 to cover the cost of the millions of pages of educational material, articles, youth literature, song lyrics and plays reproduced by schools. The royalties collected will be redistributed to authors and publishers based on usage reported to Copibec by teaching staff.

Long-term commitment to copyright by the ministry of education

In 1984, the Quebec ministry of education, through its minister Camille Laurin, made a commitment to creators by signing the first agreement covering the reproduction of copyright-protected material. At that time, it was the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ) that was responsible for managing reproduction rights and ensuring that the first licensing agreement was applied. That agreement made it possible for institutions at every educational level to photocopy excerpts from a repertoire of 16,000 Quebec books, based on certain limits. In return, the ministry agreed to pay a total of $1 million over five years.

UNEQ paid out the first royalties in 1985 to 1,927 authors and 206 publishers from Quebec. Those were the “olden days” so most of the work to keep track of titles and authors was done manually and every cheque was inserted into an envelope by a UNEQ employee!

Since Copibec’s creation in 1997, the collaborative efforts between the ministry of education, authors and publishers have become much stronger. Today, teaching staff can photocopy, scan and display excerpts from millions of works published in about 30 countries. Titles are registered and reproduction uses are tracked online and teaching staff have access to SAMUEL, which is Copibec’s digital content platform. On a day-to-day basis, Copibec’s team meets with teaching staff and answers their calls and emails. There’s an ongoing dialogue. We come up with solutions and put users in touch with publishers so users’ needs can be met and publishers’ legitimate concerns can be taken into account. Listening and cooperating are what makes it work!

What’s allowed under the 2017-2020 agreement?

The new elementary/high school agreement allows all teachers and teaching professionals at the preschool, elementary, high school, adult education and vocational training levels to reproduce millions of documents protected by the Copyright Act . They can also view and download excerpts from a variety of content on SAMUEL.
Teachers and teaching professionals are also allowed to photocopy and scan (digitize) up to 10% or 25 pages of an educational publication and 15% of any other document such as books, newspapers, magazines and sheet music collections. In some cases, they can display a complete work in class or reproduce an entire play! For more information, please visit our website page that explains what’s allowed under the elementary/high school agreement.

Why data collection is so important

To gather data and distribute royalties fairly and equitably to the authors and publishers whose content has been reproduced, we’re collecting data in Quebec schools again this year. By doing so, we can obtain valuable information that identifies the works used in schools.

This process has been carried out in 350 Quebec schools every year for the past 11 years and teachers are already very familiar with it. We want to be sure to thank them for their involvement over the years. While visiting schools on a regular basis to provide training about copyright, our team can see that teachers are making an effort to stay informed and ensure that creators’ rights are respected. Participating in the data collection process is a clear example of their commitment.

Teachers’ needs are evolving and so is collective rights management! We’d like to thank all our partners in the education sector. We very much appreciate their unfailing support as we move into the future!

***

Previously in the Did you know category : Did you know the © symbol isn't needed for copyright protection?