Literary Press Group calls for government action to protect the rights of creators and publishers in the wake of federal court ruling

The massive scale of uncompensated copying by educational institutions must now be addressed by legislation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toronto—February 28, 2024: The federal court ruling in the case brought against Access Copyright by Ontario school boards and provincial / territorial education ministries (except for British Columbia and Quebec) is another serious setback for Canadian creators and publishers, whose rights have been, and continue to be, harmed by the education sector’s overly broad interpretation of fair dealing. Long-overdue copyright reform must happen now to close unintended loopholes in the Copyright Act.

The Literary Press Group joins colleague organizations across the writing and publishing industry in calling for immediate Government action to repair the broken Canadian copyright regime. The Government has repeatedly promised to act, but with this latest judicial ruling, we can wait no longer.

Our member presses, and the authors they publish, rely on the collective licensing system administered by Access Copyright. With that system undermined by judicial rulings, a legislated solution is urgently required to restore a functioning marketplace and fair compensation to creators and publishers for the use of their copyright-protected works. Individual creators and publishers simply cannot take on the gargantuan task of monitoring every use of their work in educational settings across the country, especially when those uses have not been transparent, and then attempt to enforce their rights case by case. The collective regime, when it functions properly, streamlines these transactions. Collective administration through Access Copyright is in the interest of all stakeholders.

Evidence in proceedings before the Copyright Board showed that uncompensated copying in the elementary and secondary education alone amounted to over 150 million pages per year. This does not even include copying by postsecondary institutions. No wonder more than $200 million in licensing revenue has disappeared over the last decade, with additional unknown lost sales.

Now, it is imperative that the Government:

• amend the Copyright Act so that fair dealing only applies to institutions where a work is not commercially available under licence by the owner or a collective;
• amend the Copyright Act to clarify that tariffs approved by the Copyright Board of Canada have always been enforceable against infringers of copyright-protected works subject to tariffs; and,
• amend the Copyright Act so that statutory damages are rebalanced to deter mass uncompensated copying by institutions.

It is time to restore meaning to the phrase “copyright-protected works.” It is time to ensure real protection of the rights of Canada’s creators and publishers.

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Contact: Laura Rock Gaughan, Executive Director, laurag@lpg.ca

Tags: Copyright, Fair Dealing, Books, Writers, Creators, Publishers, CanLit, Culture