CFLA Copyright Committee Update (October 2023)

October 30, 2023

Here are the key communication points from the October 17 CFLA Copyright Committee meeting:

• CICan (Colleges & Institutes of Canada) is ramping up their advocacy efforts regarding copyright in the college sector. In particular they will be releasing a new copyright primer for colleges and institutes.
• The Crown Copyright Working Group is sending their latest draft of Crown Copyright Code of Best Practices for initial legal review.
• Artificial Intelligence and Copyright Working Group will be presenting at the OLA Copyright Symposium on Dec. 7 and is also preparing a submission to the Federal Government’s recently announced Consultation on Copyright in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence.
• The Accessibility Working Group is incorporating stakeholder feedback into a revised draft of the Reasonable Search Guidelines and will send the Guidelines to the Canadian Coalition For Inclusive Publishing for further review and comment.
• The E-book Collaboration umbrella group is studying assessments of provincial legislation regarding definitions of “consumer” in consumer protection legislation to determine which provinces’ definition of consumer would include libraries as part of determining next steps in e-book licence advocacy. The umbrella group is also looking at the Competition Bureau review as a possible avenue for advocacy.
• The PLR (Public Lending Right) Working Group is finalizing membership to include individuals from Canadian public libraries. The Working Group will develop a position statement on the PLR along with background information and references on PLR.

(Via CFLA Copyright Committee)