Tariff for Photocopying Set by Copyright Board of Canada
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TORONTO, June 30, 2009 – The Copyright Consortium of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, is reviewing last week's decision by the Copyright Board of Canada, which established the rate that must be paid to Access Copyright, a collective representing certain authors and publishers, in order for schools to photocopy published print materials. The rate applies to schools operated by school boards in all Canadian provinces and territories except Quebec, and will permit schools to photocopy materials for which the copyright is held by members of Access Copyright.
“We are pleased to have a decision on this important matter; however, we will need time to assess the implications of this tariff on public education,” said Marilyn More, Nova Scotia's minister of education and chair of the CMEC Copyright Consortium.
Access Copyright filed an application in 2004 requesting that the Copyright Board of Canada establish a rate of $12.00 for each full-time-equivalent student attending a kindergarten-to- grade-12 school. In its recent decision, the Copyright Board set the rate at $4.64 per full-time- equivalent student for the first four years of the tariff, 2005 to 2008. The rate will increase to $5.16 for 2009. The tariff, which applies to all provinces and territories except Quebec, will cost about $20 million per year, based on a student enrolment of about 4 million students.
The decision replaces a five-year, pan-Canadian licence, which expired in August 2004. Under that licence, the negotiated rated was $2.45 per full-time student. “It has been a long process, which has resulted in a comprehensive decision by the Copyright Board,” said Ms. More. “I want to thank CMEC's Copyright Consortium, in particular, the officials of the consortium's steering committee, who worked so hard on this issue on behalf of students and teachers.”
“This has been a challenging issue for all parties involved,” said Ms. More. “We have to ensure that teachers have access to a wide variety of print materials for their students. At the same time, our creators and publishers must be fairly compensated for their work, which is of great value to teaching and learning in our schools.”
CMEC is an intergovernmental body composed of the ministers responsible for elementary-secondary and advanced education from the provinces and territories. Through CMEC, ministers share information and undertake projects in areas of mutual interest and concern. The CMEC Copyright Consortium comprises members from all provinces and territories with the exception of Quebec.
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Information
Colin Bailey
Assistant Director, Administration and Communications
Cell: 647-308-2380
Tel.: 416-962-8100, ext. 259
E-mail: c.bailey@cmec.ca