Evidence of meeting #117 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 material.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Policy Analyst, Canadian School Boards Association
They're distinct from a book. They're also distinct from a resource that's intended to be copied, which we call a reproducible, in which case a creator will give a teacher's guide that has blank pages in it. It's intended to be copied.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
I appreciate that explanation. Thank you.
My final question is for Ms. Marshall. We've heard from many different universities and although many of them had joined York in this case, there seems to be a difference in policies at these universities. For example, I believe the University of Guelph continues to pay for a certain level of collective licensing.
Is there a disagreement amongst the universities or is there a monolithic agreement over fair dealing, copyright, and licensing?
Provost and Vice-President, University of Calgary
I think there's general agreement on fair dealing. I think there are various points of concerns, partly related to the size of the university, with regard to how you manage copyright and whether you can be effective. For example, some universities opted out in 2012 and, when there was a model licence developed, opted back in because they thought there was better protection in doing that.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Are there some universities that have chosen to opt back in to the process?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Something I thought was interesting was that it seemed as though Access Copyright was asking for an exorbitant amount, $45 initially, but that was negotiated down to the $26 amount.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
That's almost half the amount. That might very well be the best number, but isn't there an opportunity for more back and forth for universities, to get a better number for the universities?
Provost and Vice-President, University of Calgary
I would hope there would be, but if, for example, we were paying in the $10 to $15 range, with the $2.38 plus the 10¢-per-page fee, then going up to $26 and then $45 would seem ridiculous to me. When we're doing our costs, if our students are $10 to $15 a student, why would I pay $26? That's the concern for me. Do we have the numbers the right way, and why did we jump to $26?
Part of that, I think, is that Access Copyright, and rightly so, wants to protect creators. But part of the issue that we have not discussed at all here is the publishing industry. When one of our professors, for example, writes a textbook, we don't control the contract with the publishers. The publishers are having record profits while the authors are getting less money. There is something wrong.
In response to an earlier question, we balance being part of a collective, not only for copyright.... I mean, all those opt-out institutions got together and shared information. We talked about how we would clear copyright. We shared best practices on how we did that. That, I would argue, is a collective in and of itself. We also joined together in many ways to purchase product from publishers, to see whether, if we were part of a collective, we could get a better deal. We've had to come out of those as well, because we're finding that the publishers are just ratcheting up. There's a monopoly with five or six companies, and intellectually, when we talk about academic material, that makes it very difficult. This is why you see the rise of open educational resources and open access materials, which also have had an impact in this area.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
The publishers are actually coming in next week.
For the final three minutes, Mr. Graham, you have the final take of the day.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I hope my three minutes will be about the same as Dane's three minutes.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
All right.
On a couple of occasions, Mr. Ramsankar and Ms. Andrew, you've held up a book. I want to make sure we have it on record. I believe it's called “Copyright Matters!”
Liberal
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Is that something we could get a copy of? I think what it says could be quite informative for our study.
Policy Analyst, Canadian School Boards Association
I can leave you my copy. I believe it was distributed by CMEC last week, when they were here.
Policy Analyst, Canadian School Boards Association
It's also available through a free download from the copyright decision tool.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Excellent. I'll take a look at that. Thank you.
Ms. Marshall, in your earlier comments, you discussed at length the lack of transparency from Access Copyright. Could you go into more detail? You mentioned that you were double paying for the same material. Can you expand on that? How do you even know?
Provost and Vice-President, University of Calgary
There are two ways in which universities double pay. The first one is that if we purchase a licence in print material and then we want it in digital, we have to pay for it again. Access Copyright doesn't deal very much in digital material, so that creates an issue.
The second way is related to research that universities produce. Research on campuses is typically federally or provincially funded through the public purse, or the vast majority of it is. Universities take that money and researchers do research. Then they are required by tri-councils—we really agree with this policy—to publish their material. We're trying to go more open access. In order for researchers to get promoted or merit on an annual basis, they want to publish in the best journals. They pay to publish. They provide a publishing fee to the publishers, and then the universities in turn pay a licence to read that same material. It's a good racket.