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Universities Agree To Email Monitoring For Copyright Agency
New submitter fish waffle writes "The universities of Western Ontario and Toronto have signed a deal with Access Copyright that allows for surveillance of faculty correspondence, defines e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document, and imposes an annual $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student to pay for it all. Access Copyright is a licensing agency historically used by most universities in Canada to give them blanket permission to reproduce copyrighted works, largely to address photocopying concerns that may extend beyond basic fair-use. Since the expiration of this agreement, and with recognition that many academic uses do not require copyright permissions or payments or are already covered under vendor-specific agreements, Canadian academic institutions have been united in opposing continuation of the agreement with the agency. Access Copyright has countered with a proposal for increased fees, and expansion of the definition of copyright to include linking and the need for online surveillance. In a strange breaking of ranks, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto have capitulated and signed agreements that basically accede to the licensing agency's demands. The Canadian Association of University Teachers bulletin provides detailed background on the issue (PDF)."
/facepalm. Both sides.
The fact that others are NOT doing this means that people in Canadian Universities can change to a different University. Lucky people.
Did I understand this correctly, linking to content is the same as providing a copy of the content and requires a fee? Does that mean that Google Canda is next?
You'd think the Universities would be the last to cave in to a blatant demand for protection money.
Can they really be serious? Linking is equivalent to a copyright?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
How can emailing a hyper-link be equivalent to photocopying? When one photocopies, they then get a physical copy of a document. On the other hand, e-mailing a hyper-link provides no such physical object.
Here's how to circumvent the insanity: Email actual documents and then argue that *no* hyper-links were emailed as required by the stipulation. How about that?
This practice sounds like complete the opposite of the principles of scientific research.
I don't see anything in the article that mentions anything about email monitoring. Also the source seems biased...any more impartial sources?
Except in Canada you have to give them the right to monitor email or internet traffic as you do have reasonable expectation of privacy.
Simply have to refuse to sign any paperwork which gives them the right to monitor. If they do monitor and try to do anything then they are basically providing evidence that makes your lawsuit very easy.
The world is batshit crazy. Email a link is wrong now.
Shutdown thw whole goid damn internet then its a worthless pile of shit.
My death wish for them all is that the die choking on there own vomit.
If i write an email and someone whom I did not choose to be a recipient reads it by this means, they should have to pay me royalties for the right to view my creative work. Students should receive 27.50 from the university for being the content providers for the sick dreams of our perverted neo-con big brother. Anything short of that and this is basically theft and circumvents all that the concept of copyright stands for.
Use of encryption, and international email services on HTTPS, has started to rise in Canada.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Time to move to an independent email account. Not a good idea to entrust your email in the hands of your employer.
I really want to enroll there, make a little PHP script to redirect to a random link on either a newspaper, or the pirate bay (50% chance of each), and then distribute that link in an email. Wonder what they'd do with that. What about a site where if you aren't logged in, all links to its content redirect to copyrighted material? They aren't *really* going there, you just don't have access to where they actually go...
... why wouldn't work for email as well?
You pay the levy/tax or whatever is called for CD-Rs as well even if you just use them to back-up your own pictures (or even if you want to use them as coasters).
Why not tax email as well, even if you don't use it for copyright infringement, even if you don't use it at all.
I am going to start a web site soon, with a lot of content. Will these people start giving me money? How many other web sites are they going to be giving money to? If they aren't going to give people like me money, why oh why should anyone give them money for content that isn't theirs? This sure looks like a shakedown racket (not unlike the Chicago branch of Cosa Nostra). I'm disgusted that these universities capitulated. Surely any university with a Law Faculty wouldn't capitulate like this, and wouldn't put up with it.
So who exactly are this company ? who are the employees, who are the directors, where do they live ? what is their education and salary ? children ? phone ? car they drive ? registration ? what do they do an a saturday night ? what makes them tick ?
Then send 1 MB e-mails filled with nothing but links that may or may not be functional. I wonder what the result will be?
Monitoring faculty email in this way may well violate the U of T's collective agreement with their faculty. I'm at another Canadian university, and I'm pretty sure it would violate ours.
While it may not be the end of the physical world, no one said anything about the free world.
I mean WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON THIS YEAR!!??!? NA Gov's have lost so much fear that they are openly seeking big chunks of all this power.....and for what? Examples: the Moroccan kid they BAITED into being a 'suicide bomber', like Megaupload, the current powers they posses were CLEARLY enough stamp out these particular evils. So wtf? Are they trying to bait the public into revolution? Are they that sure of themselves? I really doubt that, but still....this is madness.
Yes I know this is about copyright. That doesn't change much.
WTF? have they completely lost their minds? I hope this is not the crap they are teaching the kids there.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Suppose I email a link that explains where a certain book is on a shelf in my home? Is that equivalent to copying the book and does it become a copyright violation? If a piece of paper with writing on it falls to the ground and I point to it, is that also not allowed? Whole matter sounds insane to me. Lucky I am in the US where this can't possibly happen.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
What gives this company a right to grant copyright protection for everything?
defines e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document
Linking does not equal photocopying.
That has to be the worst analogy ever.
Wonderful how they think they can define things themselves (kind of like how they define infringement as "theft"). I can define black as white, but it doesn't make it so.
Student: Hey, those two books you were looking for? I saw one at the library, and the other at the book store.
Copyright police: Hey, he's just shared two links. That's two counts of infringement!!
...there's one born every minute.
...that no one intelligent will ever apply to again. Good job; now watch your rankings fall like the stones in your university administrators' heads.
Great Intellect...
I heard about the "copyright police" at university, where a bunch of petty small-dicked wankers have nothing better to do, then to get paid by scumbag publishers to hang around photocopiers to make sure nobody's copying too much.
Clearly, some fat cat assholes at Elsevier and friends are afraid of losing their obscene 45% profit margins.
But intrusive surveillance to monitor in case somebody might link to somebody copyrighted, is bizarre and utterly extreme. It's a bit like burning down the entire forest, just because there might be a snake somewhere. But then, with corporatist extremists seemingly on the march everywhere, and seemingly completely untouchable these days, little surprises me.
I honestly can't believe that U of T and Western would be bullied into to such an outrageous proposition, even if they were being paid money in an attempt by Access Copyright to gain a foothold so that other universities will fall in line. Although this upstanding company can surely be trusted with the contents of all faculty and student e-mail correspondences, including those containing original research ideas and algorithms that aren't intended to be disclosed to anyone else, it just doesn't sound like a good idea.
Why are students paying for the "privilege" of being monitored ? Do they not have law students over there ? I'd sue the goddamned administration!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I was about to say that I don't see the difference between URL-as-reference and international-standard-Harvard-system-referencing. Neither gives the reader access to something they wouldn't otherwise be able to see, and neither reproduces any content. This is a ludicrous state of affairs.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Considering all of the news coming out of Canada, I'm wondering if it might not be a bad idea to get into the gun running business. This begs the question, "Would they sell them back, when our turn comes, at the same price".
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
wacky Canucks!
Why would anyone at universities that haven't gone batshit crazy deal with these morons? Aren't links kind like what the web is about? Canada is getting it's tubes tied. With roughly the same result
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Law Degrees from UofT and Western suddenly aren't worth the paper they are photocopied on... or should I say... hyperlinked too!
I have a blog that I write and own the copyright on. Will Access Copyright send me my cut if a student happens to send a link to my blog to a friend? And what if they send a link to their own blog? Will that student now be entitled to a partial refund of their 27.50 Canadian?
Seems like this could be a revenue stream that bloggers may have to wake up to!!
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
use that shit any more.
Yeah, Stallman's The Right To Read may be getting linked a lot (for free, still) - but it is so apt.
Check your premises.
Via Ariel Katz, UofT Students and Faculty Demand Suspending the Access Copyright Agreement
I'm on faculty at a different Canadian university. So far, we've cut no deal with Access Copyright yet and I hope we stay strong. You can bet that I'm asking our union to keep an eye on the situation as it relates to the privacy rights of students and faculty!
Ironically, I benefit financially from Access Copyright, having registered as an author with them years ago when a colleague pointed out they were collecting money on my behalf, whether or not I made my claim against them. I'd much rather take a few hundred dollars out of their pockets to pass onto a copyfighting cause each year!
If my university does cave to Access Copyright, I'll cease using my university email. It'll be annoying to switch away from an address I've used for twenty years, but better than seeming to acquiesce to further indignities. I suspect that we'll see more and more academics exploring that option if Toronto and Western are setting a trend.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
So if you go to this university, you can pay the $27.50 fee, and you can get all you can eat download of MP3s, Movies, Games, you name it from any source - all legally as it is covered by a separate agreement, Where do I sign? Now just imagine what content producers could do if they made easily accessible licensing terms with generous allowances direct to the public. If some people were willing spend Hundreds of dollars a year for a Megaupload membership to download illegal materials, I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to pay this amount to get legally licensed materials in return.
That's such a small fee vs what people have had to pay for limited copyright infringements..
Keep in mind that the flat fee last year was $3.75 (which was paid through the University), plus an additional sum per page for course packs (which are usually paid and collected through the stores where the course packs are purchased).
And if I'm reading the article and the backgrounder correctly, the flat fee has increased to $27.50, but the additional fee for each page hasn't gone away, and most likely the traditional penalties for copyright infringement haven't gone away either (if nothing else, the number of those so-called copyright "infringements" may begin exploding, where previously there used to be none, now that Access-Copyright is trying to creatively redefine and broaden what an infringement is supposed to be).
From what I can see, Universities in Canada are now more about making money and less about education. Not that you can't get a good education in the process but they are very focused on maximizing the amount of money generated.
At University of Victoria, they added an Engineering Department, it got a brand new building, tons of funding etc, and the reasoning at the time was that it would generate revenue via patents etc.
Meanwhile the Fine Arts department languished in the same ancient Quonset huts it had been in for 20 years or more, and didn't get a building of its own for another 10 years or so.
Students these days pay as much for 1 years tuition as I did for 3 years or more back in the late 70s/early 80s. I used to spend about $200 on all my books for a year, now some books cost over $100 easily.
I think the Businessification (if I can coin a term) of the University system is only going to continue sadly.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
If only there were a way to encrypt attachments, or ideally an entire email!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I registered with them and, every year that I get paid, I funnel the money to a copyfighting cause. Check out OpenMedia.ca for one such great option! Plus I write them regular letters as a member, haranguing the board and denouncing their policies.
Registered or not, they're still collecting money 'on my behalf' that only goes to fill their warchest. AC levies a fee on every bit of media that they can count being loaned, copied and read in schools and on campuses, caring not who's the author until you register with them and force them to cough up a share of the funds.
They're collecting money based off of my writing, your writing, everyone's writing: Canadians and other citizens! They'll pay out if you register, though and I figure that hurts them at least a little bit which works to our advantage.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
Well, this ia a good argument for encrypted communications.
“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”
Robert A. Heinlein, from his short story “Life-Line”, first published in 1939
It just looks like they are avoiding the confrontation altogether. It is likely just easier for them to tack on 27$ to every students tuition than it is to deal with it. If people don't like it they will just say they were forced to do it by Access Copyright. If students feel like protesting, go protest Access Copyright or talk to your local political shill.
When I was in grad school in upstate NY for engineering in the 1990s, I took a class in which the professor found out how much the campus bookstore was charging per copy for the textbook he wrote, and compared it to what he was getting in royalties. It was on the order of $90 retail for the book, and he was getting roughly $5 per copy sold. He promptly loaned his own copy to each student sequentially so that we could xerox it, which ended up costing about $20 each.