Universities Agree To Email Monitoring For Copyright Agency 165
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the somebody-forgot-to-read-the-fine-print dept.
from the somebody-forgot-to-read-the-fine-print dept.
New submitter fish waffle writes "The universities of Western Ontario and Toronto have signed a deal with Access Copyright that allows for surveillance of faculty correspondence, defines e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document, and imposes an annual $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student to pay for it all. Access Copyright is a licensing agency historically used by most universities in Canada to give them blanket permission to reproduce copyrighted works, largely to address photocopying concerns that may extend beyond basic fair-use. Since the expiration of this agreement, and with recognition that many academic uses do not require copyright permissions or payments or are already covered under vendor-specific agreements, Canadian academic institutions have been united in opposing continuation of the agreement with the agency. Access Copyright has countered with a proposal for increased fees, and expansion of the definition of copyright to include linking and the need for online surveillance. In a strange breaking of ranks, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto have capitulated and signed agreements that basically accede to the licensing agency's demands. The Canadian Association of University Teachers bulletin provides detailed background on the issue (PDF)."
Change Universities (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this some sort of joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think the Universities would be the last to cave in to a blatant demand for protection money.
Can they really be serious? Linking is equivalent to a copyright?
Re:Poor Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor Google? How about poor Canadian WWW, almost every website that's hosted in Canada has at least one hyperlink to an external site, the contents of which are copyrighted.
Re:Poor Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find interesting is that for 27.50$ per year per student, they have a blanket permission to reproduce any copyrighted work (should I understand the summary correctly) ... That's such a small fee vs what people have had to pay for limited copyright infringements..
And in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Use of encryption, and international email services on HTTPS, has started to rise in Canada.
Re:Anti-scientific? (Score:5, Insightful)
The prevailing trend in Canada seems to be drifting way from scientific research: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16861468 [bbc.co.uk]
Each time I read a new article about my country, I become more and more ashamed to be Canadian...
Re:Anti-scientific? (Score:3, Insightful)
This practice sounds like complete the opposite of the principles of scientific research.
Of course. Publishers aren't in this for the science.
Re:Is this some sort of joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody high up in the university administrations got bribed, is my guess. I honestly can't think of any other reasonable explanation.
Re:Random Redirection NOW! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Change Universities (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the 80s I paid $600 a term ($1200 a year) for comp sci at Waterloo, and with paid work terms in between it practically came out to be free... Every time I read slashdot I feel lucky that I'm old, sad isn't it.
Re:Change Universities (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, $27.50 is a drop in the bucket compared to tuition, and hence not likely to affect much of anything.
You are focussing on the students. I think it is more likely that the faculty staff will start leaving. Email is insecure enough as it is, and the last thing most professors actively involved in research will want is a third party having access to any unpublished research that is sent to colleagues and co-authors via email.
Re:Change Universities (Score:5, Insightful)
This isnt about drops in the bucket this is about Copyright Lobby's war chest...
73,685 Students (UofT) * $27.50 = $2,026,337.50 / per year
That is being given to hostile entities that may just come by and sue anyways. Sorry but UofT and Western Ontario did their students a great disservice by selling them out to the copyright lobby. Honestly, if I was in either of these schools I'd be transferring and encouraging everyone else to transfer to.
Re:Privacy law disagrees (Score:2, Insightful)
IANAL, but you DID sign the document. You didn't write your name, but it was you who physically signed it. Judges don't look fondly upon jokes like that.
Re:Students & Faculty Attack Agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worked at two universities and both, during my time there, have had IT departments evolve to demand that all communications be done by in-house email (i.e., "we cannot reply to personal email addresses for security reasons"). It seems (a) dumb, (b) not really a security benefit, (c) a violation of academic/speech freedom, and (d) unsustainable if anyone outside wants to communicate with us (i.e., break the whole structure of email itself).
But it's the first thing I thought of with this "monitor faculty email" bit. Link that with "all correspondence must be by faculty email" and then you've got a real academic dystopia going.