The issue
The Government of Canada is in the process of updating Canada's copyright law for the Internet environment. Our view is that copyright law must provide a balance between new protections for online works and the enactment and updating of statutory exceptions to provide reasonable access to Internet works for students, teachers, and researchers. This balance must be reflected in each stage of the copyright law reform process.
AUCC and its member universities are focused on several important issues during the copyright law reform process. One of the most important is the need to amend copyright law to allow fair and reasonable educational uses of Internet materials that have been made publicly available by copyright owners with no expectation of payment for their use. Copyright law must also be amended to facilitate technology enhanced learning so that students participating in a program of learning through the Internet will not be disadvantaged in comparison with their counterparts physically present in the classroom, and educational institutions will be able to take advantage of new information and communications technologies for program delivery.
Finally any prohibition against the circumvention of digital locks applied to online copyright material must permit circumvention for non-infringing purposes such as fair dealing or uses permitted by educational and library exceptions in the Copyright Act.
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