The CBC on impact of "fair dealing" in education

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

The CBC recently covered how Canadian creators, publishers, teachers and students have been impacted by the gradual move from the use of paid to free content in the education sector.

Among those interviewed in “Copyright-free material edging out Canadian educational texts” are John Degen, executive director of the Writers’ Union of Canada, Paul Edmond, president of Emond Publishing and as a counterpoint, Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada.

The addition of “education” as a fair dealing exception to Canada’s Copyright Act in 2012 has led the majority of Canadian universities, colleges and school boards outside Quebec to adopt “fair dealing” content use guidelines that set out the education sector’s interpretation of what can be copied without compensation to creators or publishers.

A report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2015 (which Access Copyright commissioned) further illustrates how the market for Canadian education materials has been imperiled by the actions of the education sector.