Access Copyright has filed its response to the Copyright Board of Canada’s series of questions about fair dealing and education in the tariff proceedings involving Canadian post-secondary institutions. I have several posts planned about the 40 page response, which continues the copyright collective’s longstanding battle against fair dealing. This one focuses on Access Copyright’s astonishing effort to urge the Copyright Board to reject the Supreme Court of Canada’s clear ruling on the relevance of licensing within the context of fair dealing.
Access Copyright has frequently argued that the availability of a licence should trump fair dealing. For example, in the 2001 copyright consultation it stated:
As a rule, where collective licensing is in place there should be no exception or limitation to a right for which the holder has a legitimate interest. As defined in the Act, anytime that a licence to reproduce a work is available from a collective society within a reasonable time, for a reasonable price and with reasonable effort, it is commercially available.
Access Copyright reiterated its position in its 2003 intervention in the Law Society of Upper Canada v. CCH Canadian case. It argued:
