Requirements

Canadian Copyright Law

Background

The 1985 Canadian Copyright Act defines copyright in relation to a “work”, and right to “produce, reproduce, perform or publish” the work or to “convert” it in any way, change the way it is reproduced, adapt, communicate, present or sell it.

Further, a “work” may be literary, dramatical, musical or artistic or a compilation, a computer program, translation of any work, a compilation, a recording, or a performance.

“Fair dealing guidelines” provide guidance for when copyright material may be used without permission or payment. There are two tests for fair dealing, and one is includes that the material is used for educational purposes. The second is that the dealing must be considered fair. Guidelines for what constitutes fair have been suggested by the Supreme Court of Canada.

As part of the fair dealing guidelines, one must still provide a proper citation for any work used. See 3.2 Formatting and Citation Requirements.

In general, the guidelines allow for copying of short excerpts of a work that are distributed through the course (in a handout, in a learning management system, as part of a course pack, as an e-file or as an email attachment) such as:

• up to 10% of a copyright-protected work
• one chapter from a book
• one single article from a periodical
• an entire artistic work from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works (such as a painting, print, photograph, diagram, map, etc.)
• an entire newspaper article or page
• an entire poem or musical score
• an entire encyclopedic entry, annotated bibliography entry, dictionary entry or similar

In addition, using the materials in lectures (recorded or not), power point presentations, etc. which are included as part of the learning management system are allowable as long as they pass the guidelines.

However, in relation to the guidelines as above, no more of the work can be copied than is required to achieve the allowable purpose. Further, copying or communicating multiple short excerpts (with the intent to communicate substantially the entire work) from the same work is prohibited. Also, any fee charged for communicating or copying a short excerpt must only cover the institutional costs (including overhead).

Copyright permission may be sought for educational use as well. Use the Copyright Clearance Request sheet to keep track of granted permissions.

In addition, you may use your own works to augment your course materials or find other free resources such as creative commons licensed resources, public domain works, open access works or other publications where permission is not required to copy).

Copyright at NorQuest

Further Information