Six national education organizations urge the federal government to introduce an “educational amendment” into Canadian copyright law that would make it legal for students and teachers to engage in routine on-line uses of publicly available Internet materials in a program of learning.
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) are among the groups supporting the amendment.
The groups also oppose a recommendation by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to establish a digital licensing regime that would force students and teachers to pay for education use of Internet material, even if it's currently freely available to the public. Such a change would seriously hinder the use of the Internet for teaching and learning purposes, they say.
Canada's copyright laws are currently being reviewed, and new digital copyright legislation is expected as early as this fall. Current regulations make it illegal for a professor, for example, to place an Internet article or image on a course Web site accessible only to students.
