The COVID-19 outbreak has forced the entire country to take the necessary measures to limit the pandemic’s spread. Copibec is no exception.

Your copyright collective closed its office on March 16 to protect the health of team members and their families. Since then, Quebec Premier François Legault has ordered all non-essential services to be shut down. Our team was already working from home at that point and we have remained available to answer your questions. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us! Email is the best way to reach us but you can also leave a voicemail message and we’ll get back to you.

Royalty payments

We understand that the arts and culture sector, which includes many self-employed workers, has been hard hit by the current situation and that royalty payments can make a big difference during these difficult times. We’re now looking to see if certain payments originally scheduled for later this year can be made earlier to support authors as well as the publishers of books, newspapers and magazines. We’ll let you know if any changes are made to payment dates.

At this time, we’re not able to say when or how the amounts will be distributed but rest assured we’re reviewing various solutions to assist you.

Data collection/reporting

We also had to make some adjustments after Quebec’s educational institutions were shut down. In particular, the second reporting deadline for the institutions participating in data collection will now be April 30, 2020 instead of March 31.

Reporting the content you’ve reproduced is more important than ever during these exceptional circumstances when many workers in the arts and culture sector are impacted by drastically reduced income streams. The data provided by the education sector makes it possible for us to compensate the people who created all the content used.

Nevertheless, we realize that teachers don’t necessarily have all the necessary data on hand. We ask that you report your reproduced, scanned and projected content anyway, to the best of your knowledge.

If you have any questions or concerns that we may be able to help you with, please contact us. Our team will get back to you as soon as possible. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on our latest news.

In the face of so much uncertainty, this is a time for solidarity. Take care of yourself and others and, above all, stay home.