Copyfraud in Action! Course Reserve Style
Copyfraud is now available in Canada. Shortly after blogging about the American experience I'm now noticing an instance of Copyfraud north of the 40th Parallel. I can't take credit for finding it myself, I read about it on the Excess Copyright blog.
In this case it looks like the Association of Universities and College of Canada (AUCC) might be overstating the the restrictions to Fair Dealing and how it impacts Course Reserves based on bad information passed to it. Yup it just got personal. This will effect MPOW next year (or even sooner actually). Here's the post form Excess Copyright:
FACT, FICTION, AND FALSEHOODS ABOUT THE "F WORD" IN COPYRIGHT LAW
To summarize a bit:
- Our colleague and neighbor McMaster University has some information posted about Course Reserves and what items can be put on for reserve now that they operate under a 'Fair Dealing Policy'
- Amongst the restrictions is no textbooks can be placed on reserve for a course based on advice from AUCC
- As it turns out AUCC's assessment of Fair Dealing is based on documentation put together but by the Copyright holders/lobbyists Access Copyright
- Access Copyright's statement that 'Required Course Readings cannot be put on library reserve' is not a correct interpretation of Copyright Law
Now how many other institutions will falsely restrict Course Reserve content based on advice given by AUCC that originates from Access Copyright? I'm guessing quite a few. If this isn't scary it should be. Access Copyright wants to sell more in-copyright (and royalty generating) material to students in Canadian schools, which is my take away from this.
Excess Copyright is a great blog written by Howard Knopf and I fully recommend it.
