Fostering a national copyright advocacy conversation

Given the attention copyright has been receiving recently (2017 Copyright Act Review; Canada-US-Mexico Agreement; borrowing and access issues during COVID-19; Access Copyright v York case; 2021 governmental consultations on issues including term extension and AI) and the next Copyright Act Review approaching in 2022, we would like to bring together the Canadian library community to start a conversation about our approaches to advocacy. Guided by the analysis we have conducted on the 2017 Copyright Act Review, we have identified key issues and areas for improvement in library and higher education messaging going forward in response to those being put forward by creator rights groups.

In this session we will discuss some of our findings and conclusions about the stakeholders that participated in the 2017 review, and the areas of contention for libraries, higher education, and users in general. We will share our thoughts about what is needed in future library advocacy, and we will invite attendees to contribute to a conversation about how to address and frame key issues for the 2022 review.

We want to gather the library community to come to some consensus on our copyright priorities in order to leverage our collective voice to articulate a clear and focused message.