Mr. Speaker, the government has been asked whether it will not be seeking an amendment to Bill C-60, an act to amend the Copyright Act, that would ensure that teachers, researchers and students at educational institutions continue to have access to publicly available material online. The government will not do so as nothing in Bill C-60 changes the existing copyright treatment of this access. That being said, the government does recognize that it is an issue.
For this reason, on March 24, 2005, when the government announced in its statement on proposals for copyright reform that it would be tabling a bill to address certain priority copyright issues related to the Internet, it also indicated at the same time that the issue of the educational use of publicly available Internet material requires further public input and consideration such that it would not be addressed in the bill, but that a consultation paper would be released as soon as possible after introducing the bill.
Bill C-60, an act to amend the Copyright Act was introduced into Parliament on June 20, 2005.
The government held a consultation meeting with stakeholders in December of 2002 to discuss the educational use of Internet material and its impact on copyright. Subsequent to that meeting, in an effort to explore possible options, the government established a working group consisting of representatives of the educational and rights holder communities. The group held several meetings in 2003 and issued a report in December of 2003 outlining its conclusions and areas of common understanding regarding educational use of Internet copyright material. However, representatives from the educational sector and rights holder groups were unable to come to an agreement regarding several key issues such as how best to approach the issue of educational use (i.e., whether through an exception to copyright or through licensing arrangements), the uses to be allowed, and how the material should be identified as “publicly available”.