Slashdot Mirror
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 $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student to pay for it all. Access Copyright is a licensing agency historically used by most universities in Canada to give them blanket permission to reproduce copyrighted works, largely to address photocopying concerns that may extend beyond basic fair-use. Since the expiration of this agreement, and with recognition that many academic uses do not require copyright permissions or payments or are already covered under vendor-specific agreements, Canadian academic institutions have been united in opposing continuation of the agreement with the agency. Access Copyright has countered with a proposal for increased fees, and expansion of the definition of copyright to include linking and the need for online surveillance. In a strange breaking of ranks, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto have capitulated and signed agreements that basically accede to the licensing agency's demands. The Canadian Association of University Teachers bulletin provides detailed background on the issue (PDF)."
The fact that others are NOT doing this means that people in Canadian Universities can change to a different University. Lucky people.
You'd think the Universities would be the last to cave in to a blatant demand for protection money.
Can they really be serious? Linking is equivalent to a copyright?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Poor Google? How about poor Canadian WWW, almost every website that's hosted in Canada has at least one hyperlink to an external site, the contents of which are copyrighted.
What I find interesting is that for 27.50$ per year per student, they have a blanket permission to reproduce any copyrighted work (should I understand the summary correctly) ... That's such a small fee vs what people have had to pay for limited copyright infringements..
Use of encryption, and international email services on HTTPS, has started to rise in Canada.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The prevailing trend in Canada seems to be drifting way from scientific research: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16861468
Each time I read a new article about my country, I become more and more ashamed to be Canadian...
This practice sounds like complete the opposite of the principles of scientific research.
Of course. Publishers aren't in this for the science.
Actually, that makes me think... If they're monitoring your emails, start appending links to three random charities in each email, and demand that those charities get their cut....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
IANAL, but you DID sign the document. You didn't write your name, but it was you who physically signed it. Judges don't look fondly upon jokes like that.
I've worked at two universities and both, during my time there, have had IT departments evolve to demand that all communications be done by in-house email (i.e., "we cannot reply to personal email addresses for security reasons"). It seems (a) dumb, (b) not really a security benefit, (c) a violation of academic/speech freedom, and (d) unsustainable if anyone outside wants to communicate with us (i.e., break the whole structure of email itself).
But it's the first thing I thought of with this "monitor faculty email" bit. Link that with "all correspondence must be by faculty email" and then you've got a real academic dystopia going.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes