Materials confiscated for copyright infringement
Alex Wagstaff
Managing Editor
@alexwagstaff
Last month, a copy shop nearby Keele campus was raided. Copyright-infringing course kits, all from York, were seized from Keele Digital by Access Copyright, Canada’s preeminent licensing collective.
The confiscation came a year after a Federal Court decision barred the shop from reproducing any works falling under the licensing umbrella of the collective. The court’s judgment also hit the shop with a $98,000 fine, and granted Access Copyright authority to enforce its copyrights.
The court decision, however, is not the only reason for Access Copyright to get involved.
“Copy shops—that do not have licences with Access Copyright or otherwise—copy infringing materials, and pocket all of the money that they make for making those copies,” says Erin Finlay, the legal counsel for Access Copyright.
The confiscation could have been avoided, the group contends, if York had not ended their dealings with Access Copyright.
“Some educational institutions, including York University, recently decided to operate without an Access Copyright licence,” said Maureen Cavan, executive director of Access Copyright, in a January 19 press release. “This decision may have provoked an increase in the use of unlicensed copy shops off campus to produce unlawfully photocopied course packs in order to meet the content needs of professors and students.”
Along with nearly a quarter of Canadian universities, York made the decision to no longer work with Access Copyright in the face of new fees. The tariff proposed by Access Copyright was $45 per student, instead of the previous fee of $3.38 per student and 10 cents per copy.
The tariff was, in fact, only a proposal to be assessed by the Copyright Board of Canada, which makes final decisions on copyright matters. The final price could very well have been lower, but evidently, universities across the country have decided they’d rather not wait and see.
Two notable exceptions are: U of T and Western. Both signed a licence at a fee of $27.50 per student; still a substantial rise from the old tariff. It can be surmised that the final fee will fall somewhere in between these two numbers: $27.50 and $45 per student.
Though administration could not be reached for comment, it seems that York has chosen not to hedge its bets on the Copyright Board’s decision. It has chosen instead to navigate copyright law itself. Whether this is realistic remains to be seen. Access Copyright seems to think not.
“York has said publicly that it can operate outside the tariff,” says Finlay. “I think what’s important about the Keele copy shop confiscation is that it’s clear that professors and students at York cannot legally do what York is saying they can do.”
