Canadian Federation of Students Say Copyright Fight Isn’t Over

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) plan to fight a new agreement recently signed between Access Copyright and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).

The AUCC signed a model license with Access Copyright, that grants certain copying rights on campus. In exchange the institutions received protections against being sued for copyright infringement.

However, the CFS says Access Copyright has a record of using the fees imposed on students to finance its lobbying campaigns to defeat copyright reforms necessary to advance research and education.

“The agreement is being rejected by students and professors and we will fight its implementation however we can,” said Roxanne Dubois National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students.

“Rather than paying to finance open access publications, purchase site licenses and promote fair dealing, the money from this agreement will instead be pocketed by large, mostly foreign owned publishing companies.”

Overall, the CFS feels the agreement will impose new fees on students, restrict the accessibility of educational material and raise concern for the respect of privacy of students and faculty.

“We are further concerned about the creation of a survey mechanism that would aim to monitor electronic correspondences and spy on students and faculty,” said Dubois.

“We are calling on university administrations to reject this arrangement and instead work with students to build a better copyright model, not spend our money shoring up an obsolete one.”