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Copyright

Information for StFX faculty and students on campus copyright policies, fair dealing, and copyright resources.

Educational Exceptions

There are some exceptions that are relevant in instruction in higher education.

The Copyright Act provides general exceptions for all Canadians and specific exceptions for particular groups, including non-profit educational institutions, libraries, and persons with perceptual disabilities. 

One exception is Fair Dealings which is outlined below and the other is that the Copyright Act also contains specific exceptions for non-profit educational institutions. These exceptions are available to you as an instructor, faculty, student at StFX.

The exceptions for non-profit education institutions are useful because they sometimes offer you more clarity and certainty than the general fair dealing exception (below), but note they are subject to important additional conditions and limitations. Examples include:

  • Reproducing a Work for Instruction in order to display it for the purpose of education or training on an institution’s premises;
  • Reproducing, Performing or Communicating a Work for Tests and Exams. This allows you to reproduce, translate, perform in public or communicate to the public by telecommunication, a work as required for a test or exam;
  • Performances by or for Students, which allows for the live performance in public of sound recordings, audiovisual works, and lawfully received TV, radio, or Internet content; and
  • Works Available Freely Through the Internet, which is a broad exception that allows you to reproduce, transmit, or perform works available freely through the Internet for educational or training purposes.

In limited circumstances, such as those involving student-created works, the non-commercial user-generated content exception may be useful, because it allows individuals to use existing works to create a new original work for non-commercial purposes.

If you have any questions email library@stfx.ca

 
USE WHAT IS ALLOWED LIMITATIONS COPYRIGHT ACT SECTION

Classroom displays

Reproduce a work for the purpose of display.

The work must not be commercially available.

 29.4(1)

Reproduction for exams

Reproduce, translate, perform or communicate to the public a work or other subject-matter as required for a test or examination.

The work must not be commercially available.

 29.4(2)

Live performance by students

 Perform a work in public.

Audience must be primarily students and educators.

 29.5(a)

Performance of recordings and broadcasts

Play sound or film recordings or live broadcasts.

Audience must be primarily students and educators.

 

Recorded copy must not be infringing.

 29.5(b)(c)(d)

Recorded news broadcasts

Make a single copy of a news program, excluding documentaries, for classroom use.

Audience must be primarily students and educators.

 29.6

Other recorded broadcast

Make a single copy of a broadcast, including documentaries, for classroom use.

Copy must be destroyed or paid for within 30 days.

 29.7

Telecommunication of lessons

Communicate a lesson over the Internet (distance learning).

Must take measures to ensure limited distribution, i.e. the students enrolled in the class.

 

Lesson must be destroyed within 30 days of course completion.

 30.01

Digital copying

Make digital reproductions and communicate them, under a license for photocopies.

Institution must have a license with a reprography collective.

 

Must take measures to ensure limited distribution.

 

Subject to later possible tariffs.

 30.02, 30.03

Publicly available material (PAM) on Internet

Reproduce, communicate, and perform for students works that are available on the Internet.

Works must be legitimately posted on the Internet, with no technological protection measure or clearly visible notice prohibiting such actions.

 

The source must be named.

 30.04

Fair Dealing

The fair dealing exception or provision  in the Copyright Act  allows all Canadians to use copyright-protected works for certain purposes without permission from the copyright owner and without payment.

To determine whether a particular use meets the fair dealing standard, the Court established a two-part test.  

First: the “dealing” must be for one of the allowable purposes stated in the Copyright Act. These are:

  •  research,
  • private study,
  • education,
  • parody,
  • satire,
  • criticism,
  • review or
  • news reporting.

Use of a copyright-protected work for teaching will typically fall under the education or research and private study purposes and pass the first test.

Second: the “dealing” must be “fair.” The Copyright Act does not define what is or what is not fair but the Supreme Court of Canada has identified six factors that may be used to determine whether or not the dealing is fair. It has also made it clear that not all fair dealing factors will apply in all cases and not all have to be determined to be “fair” in order for the overall dealing to be “fair”.

The 6 factors are:

  1. Purpose - Examine the purpose in more detail; even though it satisfies the “dealing” test, there may be other factors. For example, research for a commercial purpose tends to be less fair than for a non-commercial purpose.
  2. Character - Consider the number of copies made, but also the custom or practice in the particular trade or industry.
  3. Amount - Focus not only on quantity, but also on substantiality. How much of the work was used? AND How important or substantial was the portion used? 
  4. Alternatives - Was a "non-copyrighted equivalent of the work" available? Did you need to use the work you used for your purpose?
  5. Nature - Consider the publicity and exposure of the work as a result of the use. Wider public dissemination is one of the goals of copyright law, so the dealing may be more fair if it leads to exposure of an unpublished work. Also consider confidentiality; the dealing would be less fair if the work was confidential.
  6. Effect - Does the dealing affect the market of the original work? Consider all the factors; a dealing that creates competition is not necessarily unfair. For example, a legitimate criticism that only takes what it needs for its purpose may be considered a fair dealing, even though it may affect the market of the original.

How does this apply to uses at StFX? See the StFX Fair Dealing Guidelines.

Check Your Understanding

Works Consulted in the Development of this Guide

Content used on this guide was copied & adapted from:
“Copyright Open Educational Resources” by CARL (2020). 
  • All artwork © Giulia Forsythe, made available under a CC0 1.0 License.
  •  Material for the Openly Licensed Materials video has been adapted from: Year of Open Licenses, https://www.yearofopen.org/what-are-openlicenses/ (CC-BY); Guelph Creative Commons Video: https://learningcommons.lib.uoguelph.ca/item/what-are-creativecommons-licenses (CC-BY-NC-SA)
  • Scripted material and quizzes have been adapted from Copyright Literacy for Ontario College Employees, ©2014 Ontario Colleges, which is licensed under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 International License. Adapted material is shared here under a different license with permission. Scripts and quizzes have been modified to address an audience of instructors and staff at Canadian universities.
Opening Up Copyright from the University of Alberta.CC-BY-SA 4.0