Thousands of Canadian students headed back to school this month with many facing rising loans to pay for tuition, books, and accommodation.  My technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that as students struggle to make ends meet, significant new costs loom on the horizon as a result of a battle brewing over copying in universities and colleges.  Indeed, the University of Western Ontario has increased its student copying fee this year by over 500% in anticipation of the new fees.  The column – posted below – notes the many ways that universities access materials in ways that do not rely on the Access Copyright tariff yet still yield compensation for creators (or reflect their choice in making works freely available). That point seems to have been missed in this response from Alan Cumyn of the Writers’ Union of Canada.

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