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Coalition calls on new heritage minister to amend Copyright Act

A coalition of groups representing more than 50,000 Canadian writers, visual artists, and publishers is calling on the new federal heritage minister to take action and amend the country’s Copyright Act.

Pascale St-Onge was named the minister of Canadian Heritage on July 26, and takes over from Pablo Rodriguez, who had served as the minister from 2021. The change was part of a larger cabinet shuffle.

In a press release sent on August 3 on behalf of more than 20 organizations, including Access Copyright, the Association of Canadian Publishers, and the Writers’ Union of Canada, the organizations urge the new minister to amend the Copyright Act to ensure that educational copying is licensed.

“As Minister St-Onge takes the reins from Minister Rodriguez, tackling meaningful copyright reform must be at the top of her list of priorities,” Danny Ramadan, chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, said in the release. “The government needs to act urgently to end the mass, systemic, free copying of creators’ works by educational institutions outside of Quebec.”

The groups have been petitioning for amendments to the Act for a decade, since an undefined education category was added to the Act under fair dealing. In the 2022 budget, the government promised to extend copyright protection from 50 to 70 years after the death of an author, and it also noted the government’s commitment to “to ensuring that the Copyright Act protects all creators and copyright holders.”

Extended copyright protection came into effect in January 2023, but the long hoped-for changes to address educational copying have not yet been made.

On July 13, 2023, Access Copyright announced that due to ongoing revenue losses the organization’s board has begun considering how to downsize and restructure the collective, a change that will have far-reaching consequences.

In the latest salvo, the coalition noted that Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne “holds the pen” on any changes to the Copyright Act.

“After suffering more than a decade of systematic, unfair copying by schools and post-secondaries without permission or compensation, we are counting on Minister St-Onge to press Minister Champagne to stand up for Canadian writers and publishers and represent our interests too,” ACP copyright spokesperson Glenn Rollans said in the release.

This is not the first call these organizations or groups of organizations have made a public call on the government to take action on copyright. The Writers’ Union launched a petition to encourage the federal government to act on the matter in early 2022. And since 2017, the I Value Canadian Stories coalition has been calling on the government to restore fair compensation to creators for use of their works in the education sector.


Update, August 7: This story has been updated to clarify that I Value Canadian Stories is calling for the fair compensation of creators for the use of their works by those in the education sector.

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August 8th, 2023

7:56 am

Category: Industry News

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