| Recapping Access Copyright's 2010 Annual General Meeting |
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Access Copyright's AGM head table: (from left to right) James Romanow, Nancy Gerrish, Mike OReilly and Bill Zerter. (Credit: Gregory Varano).text here.  | As the sun reflected off of Lake Ontario on March 26, delegates and other attendees gathered inside the Westin-Harbour Castle for the 2010 Access Copyright Annual General Meeting.
At the meeting, Access Copyright announced that $26.4 million was distributed to copyright owners in 2009. For 2010, Access Copyright plans to distribute $26.5 million.
Access Copyright's new creator repertoire model, PaybackTM for Writers and PaybackTM for Visual Artists was also officially unveiled as one of the organization's major new initiatives.
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| Copyright Reform Bill This Spring? |
The Canadian media recently reported that the federal Conservatives are likely to introduce a new copyright bill this spring. Heritage Minister James Moore was quoted by Canwest News Service as saying that the new bill will have something to offer for both creators and users of copyright protected content.
Copyright was also in the news earlier this spring with the introduction of a private member's bill by MP Charlie Angus (NDP - Timmins-James Bay). The bill seeks to expand the private copying levy to include devices such as MP3 players and iPods. The bill is opposed by the Conservatives; however, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois passed a motion the week of April 12 urging the government to extend the levy.
Charlie Angus has also introduced a motion to expand the definition of fair dealing under the Copyright Act by adding the words "such as". You may recall that this issue also came up during the Copyright Consultations conducted last summer. Adding "such as" can be so detrimental to existing business models that over 50 Canadian organizations, including Access Copyright, who represent hundreds of thousands of creators and publishers from across the country joined forces to submit a paper during the Copyright consultations that warned against expanding fair dealing.
To read more about this important issue, please click here.
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| Access Copyright Releases the 2010 Distribution Schedule |
Access Copyright has released the distribution schedule for 2010. This year, the organization plans to distribute $26.5 million in royalties to creators and publishers. For a detailed look at this year's distribution plan, please click here. |
| Access Copyright Makes Digital Licensing Easy |
 Access Copyright has a simple solution to a common practice in post-secondary institutions: scanning and posting excerpts from books, newspapers, magazines and journals onto an institution's course management system (CMS).
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| Royalty Distribution Update |
Access Copyright is in the process of finalizing this year's first set of distributions to rightsholders. These distributions fall into the following categories: Full Reporting: Royalties distributed for works that have been reproduced by our licensees in the university, college and copyshop sectors, as well as from foreign reproduction rights organizations (RROs). Government: Royalties distributed that were collected from the Federal government as well as our provincial and municipal government licensees. Transactional: Royalties distributed for works that have been reproduced under Access Copyright's transactional licensing service. For more information on Access Copyright's distribution methodologies, please click here. |
