Pan Canadian Schools/Cancopy Copyright Licence Agreement 1999-2004 - Questions and Answers
Licence with CANCOPY
Press conference, Tuesday, November 2, 1999
Toronto, 10:30 a.m.
Why do schools need a licence?
Under the Copyright Act, a creator has the right to receive reasonable compensation for, among other things, the reproduction and public performance of his/her works. Photocopying is a form of reproduction; using the material in the classroom is considered a form of public performance. Therefore, a creator need to be paid for the use of their works, either directly or through a collective society that represents his/her rights. It is an onerous and oftentimes difficult process to track down a creator and to negotiate payment for the use of his/her work. To simplify the process, a collective society, which usually represents a number of creators, offers a blanket licence to users, for a fee.
How has a licence been negotiated in the past?
For the past eight years, CANCOPY has been negotiating directly with each province and territory — and in the case of Ontario, with the school board associations. The result was that licences across the country contained different terms and conditions, creating inequities in coverage for students and staff from one jurisdiction to another.
What is CANCOPY?
CANCOPY is a non-profit organization that represents the rights of creators and publishers, both Canadian and foreign, for copying of their work. CANCOPY licences organizations and individuals wishing to copy copyright-protected works, and distributes the resulting royalties to creators and publishers. Canadian educational institutions, corporations, federal and provincial governments, public libraries, and non-profit organizations are signing CANCOPY licences as a convenient way to abide by Canada’s copyright laws.
Why a Pan Canadian licence?
In early 1998, all jurisdictions had signed or were in the process of signing an agreement with CANCOPY. The collective therefore felt that it could therefore begin to regularize the tariff across the country. However, the tariff increase proposed was quite high ($2.30, $2.60, $2.90, over three years). This was unacceptable to provinces and territories, who saw the costs escalating further in the future.
At the instigation of Nova Scotia, the CMEC Information Network for Copyright was revived. It was agreed that by working collectively, jurisdictions might be able to negotiate better conditions and costs than if they had acted separately. All provinces and territories except Quebec agreed to be part of the negotiations. In Ontario, the Minister has delegated the school boards to negotiate and sign their own licences; as a result, the four school board associations were also included in the negotiations.
Why is Quebec not part of the licence?
Quebec negotiates it photocopying licence with a different collective, COPIBEC, which has a reciprocal agreement with CANCOPY.
How was the licence negotiated and by whom?
It was agreed by the ministers in February 1998 that work in the area of copyright, including negotiating a pan-Canadian licence with CANCOPY, would be done on a consortium basis, with each province and territory providing funding for the project outside of the CMEC budget. The CMEC Copyright Consortium was created and a subcommittee was struck to negotiate the licence with CANCOPY. The Negotiating Team was chaired by Mr. Roy Emperingham of British Columbia; other members include Ms. Diane Gagnon (Alberta), Ms. Cynthia Andrew (Ontario Public School Boards Association), and Ms. Rusty McClelland (Nova Scotia). Ms. Monique Bélanger of the CMEC Secretariat provided support to the group. Mr. Robert Arkin of Cox, Hanson, O’Reilly, Matheson, was retained as legal counsel.
What and who is covered by the licence?
The licence covers copying for "authorized purposes", which means any not-for-profit purpose within or in support of the mandate of publicly-funded K-12 institutions. For example, it allows teachers and some ministry, department or school board staff to copy (photocopy, by hand, on an overhead, on the blackboard) all or a specified portion of a short story, play, essay, article or poem. This allows a teacher to seize the "teachable moment".
What is a "teachable moment"?
It is an opportunity that presents itself to a teacher to build on an element or a bit of information to "teach" a point of information. For example, in a science class, the teacher may use a recent article from a periodical as a starting point for a discussion on global warming.
What are the terms of the licence?
The licence has been negotiated for five (5) years, from 1999-2000 to 2003-2004. While the tariff will rise over the term of the licence, it is agreed that the solution reached will benefit all jurisdictions in the future.
When negotiating for the term of the new licence, CANCOPY’s initial proposal to the consortium was a three-year licence at $2.30 (1999-2000), $2.60 (2000-2001), and $2.90 (2001-2002). After nearly two months of negotiation on tariff alone, the following agreement on tariff was reached:
- year 1 - $2.10/FTE (1999-2000)
- year 2 - $2.15/FTE (2000-2001)
- year 3 - $2.20/FTE (2001-2002)
- year 4 - $2.20/FTE + CPI (2002-2003)
- year 5 - $(year 4) + CPI (2003-2004)
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increases will be capped at 3%. By basing the tariff increases on CPI in years 4 and 5 of the proposed agreement, jurisdictions are reassured that the increases will not be higher than 3%. In this way, they can adequately budget for those two licensing years. It is hoped that tying the increases to CPI will set a precedent for all future educational copyright licences in Canada.
Therefore, by calculating CANCOPY’s first proposal and evaluating that proposal against the tariff ultimately agreed to, jurisdictions will pay a cumulative total of $1.35 per FTE less over the first three years of the licence alone.
How will CANCOPY know to whom to give the money collected from jurisdictions?
For the purposes of this new licence, only bibliographic sampling will occur, that is sampling that allows CANCOPY to get a snapshot of what is being copied (and not how much), in order to fairly distribute the royalties to its members. A sampling protocol, outlining the means by which this sampling will occur, has been negotiated as part of the new licence. Contrary to past practice, it was agreed with CANCOPY that the sampling period would last only five weeks (rather than ten, as in the past). Also, once a school has been chosen for sampling, it will not be chosen for another two years — this is particularly important in Ontario where, because of the number of students, schools will be sampled every year.