Students Milked Some More
There's been a copyright battle going on for a little while now between two groups:
Access Copyright (AC) is a non-profit corporation which represents a consortium of publishers and other copyright holders.
Association of University and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) is another not-for-profit advocacy organization for degree-granting institutions.
AC has made a number of bold claims and been partially supported by the Copyright Board of Canada with respect to copyright, suggesting that piracy is rampant at academic institutions, that academic institutions are responsible for maintaining a record of all potential infringments, and what exemptions apply to them, and that basically if even a single instance of copyright infringment occurs, the institution is liable as if all uses of copyrighted material is an infringment.
AC recently made a declaration that they would not license any material on a per-item basis, and instead, academic institutions would only have the option to purchase a license which covered all works AC controlled (in fact, AC has made claims with respect to works they do not control as well) at a cost of nearly $50 per student, instead of the ~$3 CanCopy fee they had already levied. In other words, they have used their monopoly power to attempt to fix a much higher price.
AUCC challenged that, briefly, but recently settled for around $26/student, calling that victory. The cost of which, we can be sure, will be entirely passed on to students. Access Copyright has successfully manipulated the system to protect themselves against the shift to open source, Creative Commons, and public domain work, represented by groups like Crack the Coursepack at McGill, with AUCC as an accessory.
Now academic institutions have been given until May 1st to respond if they plan to opt into this plan, or if they want to face being forced into the above ~$50/student levy.
Fuller breakdown of the settlement
I think this is a terrible state of affairs, but universities have no motivation to advocate for students (largely because education is so price inelastic, and there is no significant advocacy group for students (which I would blame on apathy and ignorance). So with very little coverage, the copyright industry further secures and normalizes its artificial place in society.
Access Copyright (AC) is a non-profit corporation which represents a consortium of publishers and other copyright holders.
Association of University and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) is another not-for-profit advocacy organization for degree-granting institutions.
AC has made a number of bold claims and been partially supported by the Copyright Board of Canada with respect to copyright, suggesting that piracy is rampant at academic institutions, that academic institutions are responsible for maintaining a record of all potential infringments, and what exemptions apply to them, and that basically if even a single instance of copyright infringment occurs, the institution is liable as if all uses of copyrighted material is an infringment.
AC recently made a declaration that they would not license any material on a per-item basis, and instead, academic institutions would only have the option to purchase a license which covered all works AC controlled (in fact, AC has made claims with respect to works they do not control as well) at a cost of nearly $50 per student, instead of the ~$3 CanCopy fee they had already levied. In other words, they have used their monopoly power to attempt to fix a much higher price.
AUCC challenged that, briefly, but recently settled for around $26/student, calling that victory. The cost of which, we can be sure, will be entirely passed on to students. Access Copyright has successfully manipulated the system to protect themselves against the shift to open source, Creative Commons, and public domain work, represented by groups like Crack the Coursepack at McGill, with AUCC as an accessory.
Now academic institutions have been given until May 1st to respond if they plan to opt into this plan, or if they want to face being forced into the above ~$50/student levy.
Fuller breakdown of the settlement
I think this is a terrible state of affairs, but universities have no motivation to advocate for students (largely because education is so price inelastic, and there is no significant advocacy group for students (which I would blame on apathy and ignorance). So with very little coverage, the copyright industry further secures and normalizes its artificial place in society.