Despite being a done deal, some campus community members continue to protest a new Access Copyright agreement – one Western University, the University of Toronto and the copyright licensing agency reached in January. Now, Western officials are attempting to offer some clarity to the issue.
Criticism from students and faculty has been clear since the announcement: Western capitulated to a copyright agreement that not only gouges students’ wallets but infiltrates privacy by surveying email accounts on campus, all at a tab of $27.50, per full-time student, per year.
Fed by confusing language, few released details and even social media, misinformation continues to be batted about on the issue. For instance, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has warned the agreement makes an emailed link to a website in a university account equal to making an illegal reproduction of materials.
Not so, say university officials.
“Contrary to what is suggested by CAUT, there is no provision in the agreement that provides for surveillance of academic staff emails,” said Stephen Jarrett, Western’s legal counsel.
He added student and faculty emails wouldn’t be subject to surveillance or monitoring under the new agreement with Access Copyright, a company that collects royalties for photocopies made for use in course packs and readings taken from books and journals.
The agreement contains a provision that both Western and Access Copyright will agree on a survey of usage that respects and complies with the principles of privacy and academic freedom, Jarrett explained.
“The purpose of the survey is to provide information that will allow Access Copyright to distribute royalties in accordance with usage, and to allow both parties to assess whether the royalty rate properly reflects the nature and extent of copying at Western,” he said. “While we are still at a very early stage of our discussions with Access Copyright, it is expected the survey will involve the continued reporting of materials contained in printed course packs as well as a sampling of materials delivered digitally through Western’s online course management system.”
During negotiations, Jarrett added, Western had a tough time agreeing with Access Copyright on what digital copying actually meant.
“We were adamant we could not agree hyperlinking constituted copying under the Copyright Act. In the end, we negotiated a compromise in which we essentially agreed to disagree over what constitutes copying,” he said.
Jarrett explained the new agreement does not require Western and Access Copyright to be on the same page when it comes to a definition of a copy.
As for cries of price gouging, Western officials point to the expanded scope of the new agreement. Going forward, the university is paying the copyright agency a flat fee, not a per copy fee, to cover all copying done on campus – both print and digital. That latter expansion is why the new agreement was necessary.
Western’s previous agreement with Access Copyright expired at the end of 2010, and instead of renewing the agreement, the copyright agency applied to the Canadian Copyright Board for a $45 tariff per full-time student for all universities and colleges in order to cover both print and digital materials, unlike the previous agreement which covered only printed works and cost students $3.83 plus 10 cents a page.
Under the new agreement, the copyright fee for each full-time student will be $27.50. Full-time students will pay an annual fee of $25; the university will contribute the remainder of the royalty ($2.50). The new fee structure starts May 1.
Western doesn’t have to rely solely on the licence provided by Access Copyright; the university can go to the original owner of any given work, if need be. The Copyright Act and fair-dealing rules cover Western, and if these rules apply to a hyperlinked work, there is no need to have a copy licence from Access Copyright, Jarrett said.
In the event of a lawsuit – say, if an owner of a copyrighted work were to sue the university for infringement for hyperlinking their work – Western could still appeal to Access Copyright to back it up. The agreement allows the university to change its mind, Jarrett added.
As for the agreement itself, it is public, Jarrett said. “It is a public document filed with the copyright board. We don’t generally advertise contracts we enter into so it wouldn’t be normal for us to post something in this case,” he explained.
Requests for the Western agreement can be made to the Copyright Board of Canada, cb-cda.gc.ca. The University of Toronto has made a copy of its agreement available online.