First of all, I’d like to wish you a very happy, peaceful and fact-checking 2025. We’re going to need it.

The latest budget statement, tabled on December 16, confirms the lack of political will to reform the Copyright Act to resolve the issue of fair dealing in education, a battle that has been going on since 2012. I’ll spare you all the details of our many advocacy efforts made by Copibec, whether solo, with Access Copyright or in collaboration with the Canadian book community. Our efforts never found an echo with the Prime Minister’s office. You know the rest.

What can we expect from the Liberal Party of Canada leadership race and the federal election this spring? Not much at the moment, but we’ll be stepping up our efforts, both behind the scenes and in the public arena, to secure the necessary amendments to the Copyright Act.

Of course, I’m well aware that amending the Copyright Act is not at the heart of Canadian or international news, that our concerns are not a priority. However, it is crucial to maintain a bulwark to protect the reproduction rights of authors, creators and publishers, as generative artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly and, to date, nothing seems able to curb the unauthorized use of content.

In this respect, we would like to remind you that the reproduction license does not allow users to use protected works with generative artificial intelligence tools.

In closing, if I had one wish, it would be that Fanfreluche will help us write the history to come.

Christian Laforce, General Manager