| From brief released March 7, 2008 by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada Education organizations are asking the federal government to change the existing copyright law in order to make it clear that educational use of publicly available Internet material is not an infringement of copyright. The Canadian copyright law needs to be changed because the law is not clear about the extent to which teachers, students, and other educational users can legally engage in routine classroom activities such as downloading, saving, and sharing text or images that are freely available on the Internet. The education amendment is necessary to clarify the law so that students and teachers can have the assurance that they will not infringe copyright law when they engage in routine uses of publicly available Internet works for educational purposes. From brief released March 14, 2008 by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada Educational Use of the Internet: “Fair Dealing” Just May Not Be Enough An amendment to the Copyright Act is needed to create a safe harbour for all educational uses of publicly available Internet material. Without the amendment, educational institutions and their students, teachers, and staff will remain in a most uncomfortable position — contorted in a legal limbo — awaiting some future court ruling to clarify more precisely the notion of “fair dealing.” So, in light of the uncertainty surrounding the application of fair dealing to certain common educational uses of publicly available Internet material, it is necessary to amend the Copyright Act to make it clear that any educational use of publicly available material is not an infringement of copyright. Briefs and copy of Copyright Matters can be found at this site: http://www.cmec.ca/else/copyright/matters/indexe.stm |