Canadian Universities Agree To Ridiculous Copyright Agreement That Says Emailing Hyperlinks Is Equal To Photocopying

from the poor-decision-making dept

In the past, we've written a few times about how Access Copyright, the Canadian collection society that gets revenue from universities for professors photocopying copyrighted works, and how it's been trying to increase rates by 1,300% by claiming that simply "posting a link" counted the same as making a copy. As we noted back in 2010, that's a crazy claim. Lots of universities decided to drop out of Access Copyright's system to avoid such crazy fees. However, not everyone decided to support this move. As a ton of you sent over, the universities of Western Ontario and Toronto have both signed agreements along those lines:

The agreement reached last month with the licensing agency includes provisions defining e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document, an annual $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student and surveillance of academic staff email.

As the article notes, it seems incredibly premature for anyone to sign such an agreement, since the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in shortly about Access Copyright's mandate and limits, so there's simply no reason to rush into such a ridiculous deal. But, even worse is the message this kind of agreement sends to students. Accepting the idea that emailing hyperlinks is like making a photocopy is a ridiculous message that only serves to make more young people mock copyright as being a law that makes no sense at all.

Filed Under: copying, copyright, links, universities, university of toronto, university of western ontario
Companies: access copyright