The Canadian Association of University Teachers has taken note of an unwise and unnecessary agreement reached by the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario with Access Copyright, a nonprofit organization which collects money from universities and other institutions for disbursement to copyright holders.
All is sweetness and light according to the administrators quoted in a press release from Access Copyright:
“We believe that this agreement is fair for all the parties — those who create the materials, as well as students who gain access to copyright materials through the University,” said Cheryl Misak, University of Toronto Provost.
“This enables, within certain limits, reproduction of copyright material for students’ use without concern for infringing on copyright restrictions.”
“This agreement gives us a convenient, comprehensive way to share content digitally and in paper form from a repertoire of millions of publications,” said Janice Deakin, Provost and Vice‐President (Academic) at Western. “The backdating of the agreement gives us peace of mind by covering past digital uses that may have exposed the university and the indemnity provision increases the university’s legal protection against copyright infringement.”
The CAUT sees things differently.
In a “Backgrounder” on the new agreement (pdf), the Association holds that
- Access Copyright, rather than taking a neutral stance, has sided with publishers, lobbying for stricter copyright legislation and characterizing academic institutions as “disrepectful of copyright.”
- At a time when “recognition of fair dealing as a fundamental and robust right” (“fair dealing” is, I think, the same as “fair use” in the US), open access, and site licenses have made the services of Access Copyright less necessary, it proposed a large increase in fees (which is supposed to be offset by cutting charges for coursepacks: it’s not clear how this would work out).
- The agreement extends the rights of copyright holders to include “posting a link or hyperlink to a digital copy”, which seems to be at variance with a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada (Crookes v. Newton, according to which linking is not the communication of the content of the document linked to.
- Astonishingly, the universities agreed to surveillance of copying, and “because the agreements define copying to include transmission by electronic mail and storing, posting, displaying, uploading and linking to digital files, the survey instruments will require intrusive monitoring of professors, librarians, researchers and students that will violate academic freedom and privacy.”
Interestingly enough, a bill to amend the Copyright Act is due to be passed by Parliament “in the next few months”. According to the CAUT, the bill would “strengthen the bargaining power of our sector with organizations such as Access Copyright”, as will pending decisions by the Supreme Court.
An unnecessary agreement, which did not have to be accepted now, has left UT and UWO at a serious disadvantage with respect to fair dealing and access to copyrighted material. Would you want to be looking over your shoulder every time you sent a link to a student or added one to your course website?
Copyright was originally the granting of temporary ownership of works to their makers as an incentive to production, with the understanding that after a limited period of time those works would become part of the public good. As with many other public goods, the products of the labor of artists, scholars, and scientists are being converted into private property which is to be controlled in æternum by mostly corporate owners. In my view the eventual solution to the contradictions now besetting copyright will be its demise, but until then we should defend fair use, promote open access, and refuse to cooperate with forces intent on destroying not only the public good, but the very idea of public good.
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