Non-Title Specific Distributions
Non-title specific distributions occur when it is impossible or impractical to collect information on the actual works copied under our licence, for example, in some government departments or universities and colleges (except for coursepack copying).
In these situations, Access Copyright collects royalties from our licensees on a per-student or employee basis. These royalties are then distributed 50/50 between publishers and creators, through our publisher repertoire payment, Payback and by using data that reflects what might have been copied in a specific sector. Payments for foreign copyright owners abroad are paid to foreign reproduction rights organizations (RROs).
Our non-title specific distributions for publisher affiliates include:
Publisher Repertoire
Our publisher repertoire payment is funded from three sources:
- Royalties collected from licensees where it is impossible or impractical for us to collect information on the actual works that they have used.
- An allocation of 15% of all revenue available for distribution (split 50-50 between our creators and publisher affiliates) in recognition of the value our affiliates provide to our repertoire.
- An allocation of 50% of the royalties available for distribution from public libraries, the corporate sector and the not-for-profit sector.
Publisher repertoire royalties are shared between all affiliated publishers based on revenue totals reported by them to Access Copyright.
Points are awarded based on sales that are reported to us by publishers and are subject to verification by Access Copyright. The total awarded points are divided into the total publishers' repertoire pool to yield a dollars-per-point figure, and then the dollars are divided accordingly.
| Publisher Sales Category | Points |
| up to 1,000 | 0 |
| 1,001 - 50,000 | 1 |
| 50,001 - 100,000 | 2 |
| 100,001 - 500,000 | 6 |
| 500,001 - 2,500,000 | 10 |
| 2,500,001 - 10,000,000 | 20 |
| 10,000,001 - 100,000,000 | 40 |
| over 100,000,000 | 55 |
Affiliated publishers will be eligible for the Publisher Repertoire Payment as long as they affiliated with Access Copyright by the end of the previous year.
For example, publishers who become an affiliate of Access Copyright by the end of 2022 will be eligible for the Publisher Repertoire Payment in 2023.
Government Distribution Model
Access Copyright distributes royalties collected from government licensees (federal, provincial and municipal) 50/50 to publishers and creators.
For publishers, 5% of their share of the royalties is distributed through the publisher repertoire payment.
The remaining 95% of royalties is distributed using a government model that factors in the type of work copied (newspapers, magazines and journals and books). Our current model was developed using survey data which captured the source of materials photocopied by federal government employees. This was paired with additional data (described below) to best identify the rightsholders whose works are copied by employees of the federal government.
- Newspapers: 14% of the royalties are paid to newspaper publishers based on weekly circulation data. Circulation reports within an 18 month period from the following audit boards were used: Canadian Circulations Audit Board (CCAB/BPA), Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), Newspapers Canada / Canadian Media Circulation Audit (CMCA), Association des médias écrits communautaires du Québec (AMECQ) and Office de la distribution certifiée (ODC);
- Magazines and Journals: 30% of the royalties are paid to magazine and journal publishers based on circulation data obtained in a study of federal government libraries;
- Books: 56% of the royalties are paid to book publishers based on the circulation and holdings data obtained in a study of federal government libraries.
University and College Distribution Model
Fifteen percent of the royalties collected are allocated 50/50 to publisher and creators via their respective repertoire payments. The remaining amount is distributed using the most recent three years of data received on coursepack copying in licensed universities and colleges. This data is a reasonable approximation of the day-to-day photocopying in post-secondary institutions across Canada (outside Quebec).
Want more information on our royalty distributions? Check out our royalty distribution schedule for 2023 as well as more information on our royalty distributions as well as how we split royalties between publishers and creators.