Evidence of meeting #114 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was works.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Okay.
In the same report, you also note that there is lack of copyright savvy in the science community. What support does the community require to better understand the connection between research, copyright, and publishing?
2:45 p.m.
Treasurer, Canadian Association of Learned Journals
Basically, the lack of savvy is that when people and academics publish in a journal, they think that is making it public, and they believe that they have a right to do anything they want with an article they've handed over to a publisher that has copyright. They effectively think they can put it up on their own websites or in an institution or a repository, and so forth.
The sophistication is growing, but there is a lot of material that's being given away that actually belongs to publishers.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Yes. Okay.
Moving to you, Ms. Parker, did UBC opt out of Access Copyright in 2012?
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
That was pretty early on, essentially when the new legislation came into place. Were you there in 2012?
2:45 p.m.
University Librarian, University of British Columbia
No, I was not there. I've been at UBC less than a year.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
2:45 p.m.
University Librarian, University of British Columbia
I was going to say that I could ask Allan Bell to answer. He was there at that time.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Allan Bell was there. Perfect.
Can you walk me through the decision to move away from Access Copyright? I'm under the impression that you guys are now doing it yourselves.
2:45 p.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia
We opted out in 2011, and we did that based on the analysis of the tariff. The tariff came in at $45 and had removed the indemnity. It had a lot of surveillance and other aspects to it that we objected to. We worked on that with Universities Canada and then AUCC. When AUCC had a model licence, we looked at that again, and we decided that it wasn't in the best interests of our institution as well. The main reason was that we were doing much less photocopying, and a reprographic licence was less valuable to us at that point in time.
That was a bold and difficult move—don't get me wrong on that—but that was our analysis of the licences that were available, that it would have been worse for us as we moved to more digital delivery of resources to continue to pay a reprographic licence. We were doing much, much less photocopying. Essentially, we were buying a book, then buying a reprographic licence to copy it, and then buying the digital material on top of that. There was a lot of overlap and double paying. That's what our analysis showed us.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
The chair is going to do his job and cut me off right away, but perhaps I can get one quick question in and one quick answer back.
Do you have any relationship right now with Access Copyright, directly or indirectly?
2:45 p.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia
We do have a relationship with them in the context of course packs. When we need to get transactional licences for course packs, they come from Access Copyright.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
2:45 p.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia
No, it's course “packs”.
2:45 p.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia
Printed course packs are on the decline and they are going to disappear.
May 11th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bell, you might want to come back to the table.
2:45 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
You're going through all the numbers.
First, to all the panel members, thank you for making your presentations. Your contributions have definitely helped us in making sure that our study is comprehensive.
Ms. Parker, I want to go back to a comment that you made, and which I think Mr. Bell echoed, around the fact that Universities Canada, as we've heard from other testimony, said that they pay more now than before for access to copyrighted material. You indicated that you're spending about $17 million. Of that, about 80% is digital and 20% is print.
Can you give me a sense of what the change has been since 2012, either up or down in terms of your expenditures, with regard to your purchases in licensing?
2:45 p.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia
We have it back to 2002.
2:45 p.m.
Associate University Librarian, University of British Columbia
We track electronic expenditures and print expenditures because they're taxed differently. We can tell you exactly what we've spent—one-time electronic, serial electronic, monographs, and print serials—in terms of total expenditure.
