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On the Supreme Court of Canada Decision on Copying in Schools

Submitted by veraliah on Tue, 17/07/2012 - 16:00

IFRRO takes note of the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada regarding copying of portions of copyright works in schools. We note, however, with surprise, that media reporting and blog commentaries have been misleading, often inaccurate and partly biased insinuation. Unlike what commentaries allege, some 90% of copying in schools still needs to be done under a licence. The appeal to the Supreme Court assessed only 7% of the volume of copying and the court did not make a final, definitive ruling on this limited amount of copying. Rather it sent the question back to the Copyright Board for review. The Copyright Board will decide if the ruling of the Supreme Court changes its impression of the fairness of the copies made, a decision we shall only have sometime in the future. 

Access Copyright has issued a separate press release on the impact of the Supreme Court decision and how they will assess it further which we commend.     
 
In a comment the IFRRO CEO Olav Stokkmo said that IFRRO strongly believes that access to educational material through agreements with RROs, such as Access Copyright, and rightholders is what best meets dynamic user needs to legally access high quality teaching material in constantly changing environments. It offers the safest, simplest, fastest, most innovative, most convenient and most cost efficient way to seamlessly access content from multiple rightholders. Flourishing local cultural industries and a healthy educational system with broad access also to local resources helps to build a sustainable national creative industry and a range of teaching materials adapted to local and special user needs. And this, in its turn, enables a nation, in the best way, to educate its population in a sustainable way that is founded in local culture and traditions.  
 
RROs operate in almost any territory and have the ability to adapt to local conditions, education systems, economic circumstances and cultures. They are about making copyright work and about seamless access to intellectual property.