University Of Calgary Refusing To Pay Access Copyright Any More

from the breaking-out-of-the-stranglehold dept

Mon, Jul 25th 2011 10:09pm — Mike Masnick

We've written a bunch about Canadian copyright collecting society Access Copyright, which gets universities to pay up for a license to cover people photocopying educational material. The organization doesn't really distribute very much of its money to content creators and yet it's been seeking a massive 1,300% increase in fees -- and Access Copyright claims that even if professors just link to copyrighted content, they have to clear that through Access Copyright.

Not everyone believes that's the case. The University of Calgary has said that the new fees are way too high, and it will no longer use Access Copyright at all. Instead, it will seek to clear any copyrights directly, when needed, or otherwise encourage professors to link to material online that students can use. It will be interesting to see if Access Copyright challenges the university for doing so. How much do you want to bet that Access Copyright will now be snooping around, looking for a professor who fails to properly clear a photocopy somewhere.

Update: Looks like York University is about to do the same thing.

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Filed Under: canada, copyright, university of calgary
Companies: access copyright

48 Comments

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Brendan (profile), 25 Jul 2011 @ 9:40pm

Happening all over
This is happening at a ton of major institutions across Canada, and I'm glad to see the schools finally fighting back. Hopefull time will only reveal more schools going this way.

Queen's: http://library.queensu.ca/copyright/teaching/queens#access
Waterloo: http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/copyright/update.html
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- Brendan (profile), 25 Jul 2011 @ 9:42pm
  
  Re: Happening all over
  Carleton apparently never signed oto the interim tarif at all: http://www.library.carleton.ca/about/policies/copyright-and-fair-dealing/guidelines-campus-copying
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- Ninja (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 12:08pm
  
  Re: Happening all over
  Love it when the greed backfires. They could have kept quiet or pushed for a sane increase of the fees but they are so delusional in their greed that they want more and more. It's a matter of time till every1 starts saying enough is enough.
  
  Love when idiots like MAFIAA dig their own graves.
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Ken, 25 Jul 2011 @ 10:16pm

Copyright scam artists.
Access copyright just another scam shake-down operation praying on students and universities.
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- The eejit (profile), 25 Jul 2011 @ 11:06pm
  
  Re: Copyright scam artists.
  Access copyright just another scam shake-down operation pissing on students and universities.
  
  FTFY
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- DannyB (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 6:17am
  
  Re: Copyright scam artists.
  > Access copyright [is] praying on students and universities
  
  I think prayer has nothing to do with it. I don't think Access copyright is religious. Even if so, I don't think their prayers would be heard.
  
  Their praying won't be heard for students and universities.
  
  They're preying on the herd of students and universities.
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  - Ken, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:10am
    
    Re: Re: Copyright scam artists.
    I am praying that Access Copyright stops preying on students and Universities.
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    - Ken, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:13am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Copyright scam artists.
      Every comment section should have an edit button to fix mistakes and typos.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Alien Bard, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:42am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Copyright scam artists.
        Like the Associated Press? I admit it's a bit annoying sometimes but I'd rather eat my own words then let a jerk get off the hook (or make someone else look bad by changing the original wording after the response). Also, there is a preview button which should help avoid any serious mistakes. And finally, most people here are very tolerant of mistakes - though they may sometimes tease a bit.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 12:37am

Finally!
Nice to see a university administration finally having the guts to stand up to these shakedown artists. Now maybe they can stand up to the shakedown artists running the expensive academic journals. How about the textbook shakedown artists? Then for an encore, they could stand up to the shakedown artists who run the patent system.

Pretty soon, we will have such an outbreak of common sense and decency, we will not know where we are. Nah, can't happen.
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- Richard (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 1:59am
  
  Re: Finally!
  Pretty soon, we will have such an outbreak of common sense and decency, we will not know where we are. Nah, can't happen.
  
  Don't be so sure. Firstly - although we continually complain that politicians are in the pay of the content industry - we may be subtly wrong. It is possible that they are scared of the content industry - because of course it includes the press - which has the power to break their careers.
  
  However if the content industry becomes discredited this may change. Look at what has happened to Murdoch in the UK.
  
  Politicians who used to turn up at his parties and accept his hospitality are now queueing up to slag him off. Even a few weeks ago nobody thought that that was possible - but now it has happened.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 1:11am

HOW DARE THEY!
Refusing to pay massive amounts of money means they are COMMIES and CRIMINALS. How dare they STEAL knowledge!

You wouldn't learn to read without paying us would you?
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- The eejit (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 2:14am
  
  Re: HOW DARE THEY!
  Read? What is this, "Read"? IS it something that grows out of the ground? Is it poured in through the ears? Or is it a musical instrument?
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  - Nicedoggy, 26 Jul 2011 @ 3:29am
    
    Re: Re: HOW DARE THEY!
    Is not a city between the westend and London, near Bath?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Nicedoggy, 26 Jul 2011 @ 3:33am
      
      Re: Re: Re: HOW DARE THEY!
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading,_Berkshire
      
      My bad is Reading not Read.
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    - Greg G (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 5:21am
      
      Re: Re: Re: HOW DARE THEY!
      No, it's a collection of villages....
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  - NotMyRealName (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 3:35am
    
    Re: Re: HOW DARE THEY!
    I'm pretty sure it's a grass used for thatching.
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- DannyB (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 6:34am
  
  Re: HOW DARE THEY!
  > means they are COMMIES and CRIMINALS
  
  How dare they?
  
  How dare you! You forgot to use the word 'freetards'.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
doughless (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 1:49am

Unless U of C's attendance jumped from 9,000 students to 27,000 students in 1 year, or unless the numbers quoted in the Gauntlet article are inaccurate, then that looks like a roughly 4000% price increase to me.
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- Bryan O'Doyle, 26 Jul 2011 @ 11:59am
  
  Re:
  Do you have a problem with a 4,000 % increase? Are you cheap or WHAT! /sar choke (*&$%^(*^&%%^$111111 !) Funny thing some other branch of government isn't enforcing laws re: price gauging.
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Nicedoggy, 26 Jul 2011 @ 3:45am

What I don't understand is why Universities don't make an open-education project for teaching material, they certainly have the human resources to do it and I believe every university today have internet.

They could use something akin to OSS Watch but for their educational material where they possible can.

They could also use material from others that are open like MIT OpenCourseWare
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Rikuo (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 5:23am

So we have a collection agency that has suddenly ratcheted up their prices and are looking to collect rents from places they have no business collecting rent from, and are not paying the actual content creators their fair due.
Good thing the Spanish police investigated these scumbags and found out they were committing fraud to the tune of millions...
Sorry, I mis-read the article. This is about some university thing, not those Spanish guys who were basically doing the exact same thing.
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Hawkmoon (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 5:37am

It's about time
I'm hoping the RIAA is next. When my friend has to pay those scumbags just so she can play cds in her salon it's gone too far. What would happen if every place that played music just told them no? It would be awesome.
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- Robert Doyle (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 6:11am
  
  Re: It's about time
  "What would happen if every place that played music just told them no? It would be awesome"
  
  And quiet...
  
  Ahhh... peace at last.
  
  Maybe they should only collect royalties for Muzak?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 6:55am
  
  Re: It's about time
  Then you could sit around and listen to fine music from Cory Smith and that kid down the street who looks like he hasn't had a shower in 6 months.
  
  You want to get the RIAA to go away? Stop listening to the radio, stop listening to commercial music, stop watching TV, Movies, and anything else with related content on it. Stop it all. Don't visit any website that pays them. Don't consume the product at all ever.
  
  I dare you to try. When you cut it all out, you will realize how much you value it. But I seriously dare you to try.
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  - Franssu, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:47am
    
    Re: Re: It's about time
    You make it sound like music sold by the RIAA is an horribly addictive drug that nobody who tasted it can stop taking.
    
    Happily for everyone, this is quite simply not true.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Alien Bard, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:57am
    
    Re: Re: It's about time
    I've been doing that for fifteen years and don't miss it a bit. We have a piano for music and the internet for news. Unfortunately, I do like to sing happy birthday to my kids and it pisses me off that I'm now expected to pay royalties for a 'privilege' that's been a family tradition since before I was born.
    
    The point is that you are correct - that stuff has very little value and our societies would be much better off without an industry based on it.
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  - PaulT (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 8:43am
    
    Re: Re: It's about time
    "Then you could sit around and listen to fine music from Cory Smith and that kid down the street who looks like he hasn't had a shower in 6 months."
    
    Ah, we're back to you pretending that no good music can possibly be made without corporate shakedown and protection schemes. Do you roll dice to choose which tired talking points, proven incorrect on multiple prior occasions to focus on, or does the switch come naturally?
    
    "Stop listening to the radio, stop listening to commercial music"
    
    I did. The RIAA forced the services I was using to listen to independent music (Pandora, eMusic, AmieStreet) to either go out of business or stop servicing me. Now, I listen to more podcasts than music, although I certainly go non-RIAA whenever possible for the music I do listen to.
    
    "stop watching TV, Movies, and anything else with related content on it."
    
    Sadly, it's impossible to completely avoid RIAA content. My local bars usually have one of the MTV channels playing top 40 music in the background, for example. I can't change my social life completely just because some corporations annoy me with their actions. That doesn't mean they can force me to pay for their content directly, though.
    
    "When you cut it all out, you will realize how much you value it."
    
    Ah personal opinion masquerading as some kind of universal truth, again. Which number was that on your dice?
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  - Anonymoose, 26 Jul 2011 @ 10:04am
    
    Re: Re: It's about time
    That's exactly what I've done. There's no shortage of non-RIAA music for free consumption on various web radio stations outside America. I do not watch television, nor do I bother with movies. I read, and listen to excellent music from places such as Nectarine.
    
    Once you stop feeding at the trough, you see what horrible things you've been subjecting yourself to.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 11:24am
    
    Re: Re: It's about time
    You make a great point. I've been doing this for more than a decade now, and it has clearly demonstrated how little value RIAA members are bringing to the table.
    
    The odd thing is that I still listen to (and buy) lots of great, new music. Exactly none of it comes from RIAA members, which has improved the quality of my music collection tremendously. A much wider variety of music of skill and polish that typically equals and often exceeds that of the RIAA crowd.
    
    Also, I actually enjoy paying for the music this way (in the bad old days, I cringed at paying for it) because I get to pay the artists directly, and I know they are getting the rewards for their hard work. Not so much with RIAA and big labels.
    
    So I agree with you, everyone should do as you suggest. They'll discover a world far richer and more wonderful than they thought possible.
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Danny, 26 Jul 2011 @ 5:55am

My money says...
How much do you want to bet that Access Copyright will now be snooping around, looking for a professor who fails to properly clear a photocopy somewhere.

I'm betting they pull and RIAA/MPAA and start bribin...erm...lobbying the government to make some sort of laws that will bascially require universities to pay Access Copyright for access to content.
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Alan Dix, 26 Jul 2011 @ 6:35am

fairs fair
I assume that given Univ. of Calgary are refusing to pay for authored material, they will take a generous line with students who refuse to pay for tuition?
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- Kaden (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 6:45am
  
  Re: fairs fair
  A swing and a miss... nice try though.
  
  U of C will be clearing and paying for authored material; they're just not going to be paying a self imposed middleman.
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- Brendan (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 9:15am
  
  Re: fairs fair
  If a student started appearing in lecture halls without tuition, nobody would notice. They just wouldn't be able to submit assignments for mars, write exams or get a degree at the end.
  
  Feel free to attend the classes for free.
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- btr1701, 26 Jul 2011 @ 9:58am
  
  Re: fairs fair
  > I assume that given Univ. of Calgary are
  > refusing to pay for authored material,
  > they will take a generous line with students
  > who refuse to pay for tuition?
  
  So you actually believe that everyone in the world owes a fee everytime they link to something on the internet?
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Jon Boddy, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:03am

Universities are to greedy
I bet universities are already collecting the money that access copyright want from them, only reason they are creating the fuss to pay that money to access. I guess they will lose eventually and have to pay big time to seattle.
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- Mr. LemurBoy (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:14am
  
  Re: Universities are to greedy
  I bet you're dead wrong. If universities were charging the access copyright money and throwing it into a pot, either tuition would go up, or the amount of student services would go down. Either way, it would affect their bottom line because they'd lose students over it.
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- Mr. LemurBoy (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:15am
  
  Re: Universities are to greedy
  Not to mention, auditors would have a heyday with this.
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- Chosen Reject (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 12:29pm
  
  Re: Universities are to greedy
  I'm sure Seattle wouldn't mind a bunch of free money, but I'm not sure why Canadian universities would pay them anything.
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Jon Boddy, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:03am

Universities are to greedy
I bet universities are already collecting the money that access copyright want from them, only reason they are creating the fuss to pay that money to access. I guess they will lose eventually and have to pay big time to seattle.
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Jon Boddy, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:05am

Universities are too greedy
I bet universities are already collecting the money that access copyright want from students, only reason they are creating the fuss not to pay that money to access. I guess they will lose eventually and have to pay big time to seattle.
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steve davidson (profile), 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:30am

What an Example
Well they are certainly establishing a great example for the kids they are collecting tuition from....if you don't agree, don't pay. Something tells me that if the kids don't agree with the grades they get, they still have to pay.
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- Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 7:47am
  
  Re: What an Example
  Access Copyright provided a service to the university; that is, making sure copyrights were cleared. The service provider jacked up their rates, and the university decided that it wasn't worth the money.
  
  If I paid someone $20 bucks to mow my lawn, and the next summer they wanted to charge me $600, I think I'd probably consider mowing it myself.
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- Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 11:01am
  
  Re: What an Example
  Something tells me that if the university tried to increase its tuition 1300%, most students would go elsewhere.
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- btr1701, 26 Jul 2011 @ 11:06am
  
  Re: What an Example
  > Well they are certainly establishing a
  > great example for the kids... if you
  > don't agree, don't pay.
  
  So you actually believe that everyone in the world owes a fee everytime they link to something on the internet?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 11:30am
  
  Re: What an Example
  "Well they are certainly establishing a great example for the kids they are collecting tuition from....if you don't agree, don't pay."
  
  In all seriousness, that really is an important lesson to teach the students. The universities aren't witholding payment for services already given -- they're making a determination that those services cost more than they're worth and are therefore no longer using them.
  
  Why is that a bad lesson? It's an important life skill that too many people don't have.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 8:10am

For some reason many of the comments are comparing this to not paying for services rendered. This has nothing to do with refusing to pay for something already delivered. They are not refusing to pay for the service, they are simply refusing to PURCHASE the service.

To place the tuition comparison in it's proper light... if tuition increased 600% for complete courses but not for individual classes, then many students would stop taking full courses and sign up for individual classes instead. They would still be paying for the classes, just not the additional cost of the associated group heading.

Opting out of a service is not the same as refusing to pay for services rendered.
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wvhillbilly (profile), 27 Jul 2011 @ 9:03pm

Copyright abuse
In the US, claiming or trying to enforce rights not granted by copyright law constitutes the crime of copyright abuse, and one can get in big trouble by doing so. Requiring a license just to access copyrighted content it seems to me would fall squarely in this category.

If you have to get copyright clearance just to access copyrighted content you'd have to get clearance or have a license every time you access a Web site, open a book or watch anything on TV. I certainly don't see any way this would fly in the U.S.A.
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