Copyright fee increase postponed

Jamie Ross
Cup Atlantic Bureau Chief
FREDERICTON, N. B. (CUP) – New rules that would change how much universities and students are charged for photocopies and course packs won’t come into play for at least another few years.
The Copyright Board of Canada issued an interim decision Dec. 23 that will put a hold on a proposed tariff put forth by the licensing agency Access Copyright.
The collective is asking to raise the fee that allows schools and students to access and reproduce copyrighted material from $3.38 plus 10 cents per copied page for course packs to a blanket fee of $45 per full-time equivalent student.
Under the interim tariff, all parties concerned can go about their business as usual, said Erin Finlay, legal counsel and manager of legal services for Access Copyright.
“The great news about the interim tariff is that actually nothing has to change. The institutions, the professors and the students, everyone can operate as they have been for the last 15 years,” said Finlay, adding the proposed tariff will take the board a “few years” to process.
The old agreement, which the interim tariff has extended, ex- pired Dec. 31.
The board issued the interim measure without reasons stated because it considered the decision “urgent.”
Critics of the proposed tariff say the fee increase is too substantial.
Greg Fergus, director of public affairs with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, says raising the rate to $45 per full-time student doesn’t make sense because in post-secondary education today, learning is being done more and more in the digital realm.
“What Access Copyright is pro- posing is paying more for something we’re using less of,” he said, noting that some schools already pay double fees for both digital and Access Copyright licenses.
“What it means is we should be paying somewhere close to $8-10 [per full-time student] … it doesn’t seem right to me that we’d be paying anywhere between two-point-five or even five times as much for a service we’re using less and less of.”
A number of universities, in- cluding the University of Alberta and Ryerson University, across the country had decided before the Dec. 31 deadline to deny the proposed increase and let their contracts expire.