Media Releases

University of Toronto’s license with Access Copyright set to end

December 11, 2013

Commitment to copyright law compliance remains top priority

TORONTO, ON — The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to has been unable to reach an agree­ment with Access Copy­right for a renew­al of the cur­rent license at a price that we believe fair­ly val­ues the ser­vice that Access Copy­right pro­vides. This out­come means that, in the year ahead, the Uni­ver­si­ty will oper­ate for the first time in many years with­out a license with Access Copy­right.

The Uni­ver­si­ty sought to obtain a license that reflect­ed the sig­nif­i­cant evo­lu­tion in copy­right reg­u­la­tion that has occurred over the term of the cur­rent license, includ­ing the amend­ments to the Copy­right Act in 2012, and the Supreme Court’s expan­sive approach to the user right of fair deal­ing in its 2012 deci­sions. We also tried to obtain a roy­al­ty rate that took into account chang­ing tech­nol­o­gy, increased avail­abil­i­ty of open access mate­r­i­al, chang­ing pub­lish­ing prac­tices and chang­ing user expec­ta­tions.

Despite this out­come, the Uni­ver­si­ty will con­tin­ue to be dili­gent about com­pli­ance with copy­right law, mak­ing prop­er use of oth­er licens­es, of fair deal­ing, and of oth­er per­mis­sions. We will con­tin­ue to edu­cate our fac­ul­ty regard­ing copy­right com­pli­ance, and will inten­si­fy efforts to make expert resources avail­able through our libraries to fac­ul­ty so that they can make the widest pos­si­ble range of excel­lent teach­ing and study mate­ri­als avail­able to their stu­dents in a man­ner that ful­ly respects the law.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to’s com­mu­ni­ty con­sists of both users and cre­ators of copy­right­ed mate­r­i­al. The Uni­ver­si­ty remains com­mit­ted to dili­gent com­pli­ance with the laws that address the rights of both.  In addi­tion, the Uni­ver­si­ty spends over $27 mil­lion annu­al­ly on library acqui­si­tions, includ­ing licensed mate­r­i­al and elec­tron­ic resources, and also sup­ports schol­ar­ly pub­lish­ing through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Press.

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

U of T Media Rela­tions
Tel: 416–978-8100
media.relations@utoronto.ca