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Universities Agree To Email Monitoring For Copyright Agency

Posted by Soulskill on from the somebody-forgot-to-read-the-fine-print dept.

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)."

6 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Change Universities by twotailakitsune · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fact that others are NOT doing this means that people in Canadian Universities can change to a different University. Lucky people.

    1. Re:Change Universities by niftydude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, $27.50 is a drop in the bucket compared to tuition, and hence not likely to affect much of anything.

      You are focussing on the students. I think it is more likely that the faculty staff will start leaving. Email is insecure enough as it is, and the last thing most professors actively involved in research will want is a third party having access to any unpublished research that is sent to colleagues and co-authors via email.

      --
      You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
  2. Is this some sort of joke? by tkrotchko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Is this some sort of joke? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Somebody high up in the university administrations got bribed, is my guess. I honestly can't think of any other reasonable explanation.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  3. And in other news by Skapare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Use of encryption, and international email services on HTTPS, has started to rise in Canada.

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    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  4. Re:Anti-scientific? by hism · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...