Respecting Copyright

Legislative Bodies in Canada

In Canada, copyright is governed by the Copyright Act, as well as by international conventions to which Canada is a party.

REGULATORY AGENCY IN CANADA

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is the organization that deals with various forms of intellectual property, including copyright, patents, trademarks, and industrial designs.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS

Canada is a signatory to various international conventions, which ensures that "the works of Canadians are protected in most countries of the world since most of them are signatories to one or another of the international conventions" (RUTTEQ et ValoRIST, 2010). This also ensures that Canada protects works created by residents of foreign countries that are signatories to these international conventions.

The Berne Convention (1886), governed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), applies to literary, scientific, and artistic works. This convention commits the signatory states to protect foreign works in the same way as the original works originating in their own country. More information on the Berne Convention.
The Universal Copyright Convention (1971): governed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is the only major convention signed by the United States. It guarantees copyright protection in the signatory countries subject to certain formalities (Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia).
The Rome Convention (1961): governed by WIPO, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) protects performers, producers of phonograms and broadcasting organizations.

POLICIES OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

"The policies of educational institutions may alter the application of the general principles established in the Canadian legal framework." (RUTTEQ et ValoRIST, 2010).

Polytechnique Montréal has published certain policies related to copyright:

● Policy Regarding Technological Intellectual Property (2010), which protects the results of research.
● Copyright Policy (2005)
● Probity Policy (1995)

"Unless any agreement to the contrary, Polytechnique cedes the first copyright it owns on academic works created by its teaching staff in the course of their employment to the authors of those works." (Copyright Policy, II-8)

In case of an agreement between a university and a company, the contract must stipulate who owns the copyright for the works created.

Exceptions

The Copyright Act provides for certain exceptions that allow the use of a copyrighted work without the prior permission of the copyright owner. One of the exceptions is the fair dealing. According to the Copyright Act (29 - 29.2):

"Fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright."

Fair dealing for the purpose of criticism, review or news reporting does not infringe copyright if the source, the author, the performer, the maker or the broadcaster are mentioned.

The Copyright Act does not specify what is "fair", therefore the courts have developed criteria for assessing whether a usage is fair (see Law Society of Upper Canada).

Assess whether your intended use of a work is fair:

NATURE OF THE DEALING	LESS FAIR	MORE FAIR
Purpose	Commercial	Charitable/Educational
Character of the dealing	Multiple copies; Widely distributed/repetitive	Single copy; Limited distribution/one-off
Importance/amount of work copied	Entire Work/Significant excerpt	Limited/trivial amount
Effect of dealing on the original work	Competing with original work	No detriment to original
Nature of the work	Confidential	Unpublished/in public Interest
Available alternatives	Non-copyright works available; Not necessary for purpose	No alternative works; Necessary to achieve purpose

Source: Fair dealing flowchart (University of Waterloo)

The Copyright Act (29.3) also states that:

"An educational institution, library, archive or museum, or person acting under its authority does not have a motive of gain [...] and recovers no more than the costs, including overhead costs, associated with doing that act."