Canada-wide analysis of serials usage.

Canadian institution makes move in bid to save C$1.5 million in fees

Last month, the University of Ottawa released a strategy to cut costs by reducing spending on subscriptions to thousands of online and print journals and databases to meet the balance of $1.527 million by Dec. 2016.

Last week, I appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage as part of its study on the future of media. The committee has heard from dozens of witnesses and one of the surprising themes has been the emphasis on copyright reform as a potential solution to the newspaper industry's woes. My opening remarks, which are posted below, warn against the reforms, including the prospect of new taxes on Internet services or linking as a source of revenue for the industry. Instead, I point to several potential policies including an ad-free online CBC, sales taxes for digital services, and non-profit funding models for investigative journalism.  The Q & A that followed with me focused primarily on copyright law. The copyright discussion stems from the fact that several earlier witnesses implausibly claimed that it would help solve the problems facing news organizations. For example, Bob Cox of the Canadian Newspaper Association told the committee:

The scholarly communications landscape in Canada and worldwide is currently under technological and economic pressures that will inevitably lead to new models and approaches (CARL, 2016). As described in CUSP: Canadian Universities and Sustainable Publishing (2016) by Martha Whitehead and Brian Owen, “Many factors are converging: the continuing impact of digital technology on

The University of Toronto Library’s Scholarly Communication and Copyright Office and the University of Toronto Bora Laskin Law Library@ organized a terrific conference on copyright in Canada three years after the Copyright Pentalogy and the Copyright Modernization Act. I had the pleasure … From Copyright Children to Copyright Adults Read More »

It was very kind of Michael Geist to take note of the National Heritage Digitization Strategy released earlier this year. Geist is a copyright scholar, in case you don’t know, and focuses on the legal restrictions keeping Canadian heritage institutions from digitizing and sharing important works that aren’t yet in the public domain- legal issues that are well-known and often discussed in the profession.

The good news is that the law now features a wide range of user-oriented provisions that legalize common activities.

The University of Ottawa will not be renewing its licence with Access Copyright.

Charles Levy - Wikimedia Commons     There once was a time when proposed inaugural Copyright Board tariffs were virtually bankable assets...

The Copyright Board of Canada delivered a devastating defeat to Access Copyright on Friday, releasing its decision on a tariff for copying by employees of provincial governments. Access Copyright had initially sought $15 per employee for the period from 2005 - 2009 and $24 per employee for the period from 2010 - 2014. It later reduced its demands to $5.56 and $8.45. The board conducted a detailed review of the copying within government and the applicability of the Access Copyright licence. Its final decision gives Access Copyright pennies rather than dollars: 11.56 cents for 2005-2009 and 49.71 cents for 2010-2014.  The financial loss for Access Copyright in the case is obvious as it expected to earn millions from the tariff. With roughly 120,000 full time employees covered by the tariff, Access Copyright's initial ask would have brought in $9 million in the first five years and another $14.4 million in the second five years for a total of almost $25 million (even its reduced ask envisioned nearly $9 million in revenues). Instead, the Board estimates that the total value of the tariff for the entire period will be $370,000, which is unlikely to cover Access Copyright's legal and administrative costs (it also does not include revenues from the Province of Ontario, which struck an incredibly bad deal in 2011 by agreeing to pay $7.50 per year per employee).