Distilling the Canadian Copyright Review 2018: One publisher's path through Canadian copyright and Canadian Coursepacks

This report examines current academic publishing market in the light of the ongoing Statutory Review of Copyright Act of Canada (2018), and reconciles the testimonies presented before the review committee by the industry stakeholders. It focuses on the impact on academic publishing since the Copyright Modernization Act (2012) came into effect, which resulted in the education sector opting out of Access Copyright tariff. The report identifies the key concerns of the independent Canadian publishers: publishers’ and authors’ losses, interpretation of fair dealing guidelines, digital shift in content acquisition, institutional expenditure on Canadian content and the economics of digital environment. The report evaluates if a partnership between an independent Canadian publisher like Arsenal Pulp Press and an upcoming publishers’ consortium called the Canadian Coursepacks can help publishers recapture their academic sales revenues. The report highlights the future concerns for independent publishers in the absence of collective licensing and a need for publishers to re-think their distribution strategies, especially their sub-licensing agreements.