An article by Emily Senger in the University of Calgary undergraduate student newsweekly includes:
Access, the Canadian copyright licensing agency, has upped its copyright royalties from 8.7 cents per page to 10 cents per page, as of Sept. 1.
The change will be reflected in the price of all photocopied materials including course packs and lab manuals, according to University of Calgary copyright officer Wendy Stephen.
I wrote the following as a letter to the editor:
I am wondering if the University has thought about Access Copyright alternatives, such as Open Access publishing. The best way to get out from under the thumb of this collective that is primarily controlled by old-economy academic publishers is to move the University to modern publishing models. As an example, MIT in the USA has the course material for a number of courses available in licenses which allow for royalty-free distribution, as well as peer production (IE: they can be modified to fit Canadian or more specific curriculum requirements of the University of Calgary).
This battle is getting even more heated with proposed changes to the copyright act where Access Copyright wants a levy for access to the Internet that is similar to their levy for photocopying. If you think the current amount of levies being paid are too much, you have seen nothing yet. The only long-term viable solution to this growing problem is to switch where you get your materials from, and the proposal from the Council of Ministers of Education for an exception to copyright for specific educational institutions will only make things worse for everyone!
