Students pledge to fight new copyright agreement

OTTAWA, April 24, 2012 /CNW/ - Students will fight to reject the new agreement recently signed between Access Copyright and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC). 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.

"The agreement is being rejected by students and professors and we will fight its implementation however we can," says 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."

Earlier this week, the AUCC, representing Canadian college and university administrators, signed a model license with Access Copyright, an organisation representing commercial publishing interests, that purports to grant certain copying rights on campus. In exchange the institutions received vague protections against being sued for copyright infringement. Access Copyright also 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.

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

The Canadian Federation of Students is Canada's largest student organisation, uniting more that one-half million students in all ten provinces. The Federation and its predecessor organisations have represented students in Canada since 1927.

For further information:

Roxanne Dubois, National Chairperson, 613-816-7486, [e-mail]