It's working very well and, contrary to what Mr. Knopf was saying, a similar system also exists in the United States under the Copyright Clearance Centre. The Americans also have a program to release works used in what are called course packs. The rates are much higher than here in Canada. They can easily be as high as 25¢ a page, whereas the rate applied by Access Copyright is 10¢ per page, and Copibec's rate is on a per student basis. So, it's based, not on an amount per page, but rather per full-time student.
On February 10th, 2011. See this statement in context.