Canada: UBC Opts Out of Access Copyright Agreement

From The Ubssey (School Paper at UBC):

UBC [U. of British Columbia] has announced that it won’t be returning to Access Copyright.
The Association of Canadian Colleges and Universities (ACCU), of which UBC is a member, agreed to draft a deal with Access Copyright, a publishing organization that centrally controls rights for academic materials such as course packs. Access Copyright had been performing that role for UBC until 2011, but UBC, after reviewing the ACCU deal, has decided they’re not going to sign up.
“We showed that we could live without the interim tariff and things went quite well for the last year since September,” said Allan Bell, UBC director for library digital initiatives.
“[It] went so well, in fact, that we think we can continue on that course, and that’s what we’ve decided to do.”
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Bell said dealing with licensing in-house hasn’t been negative for UBC. “It actually gets us talking about intellectual property rights, it’s better financially for taxpayers and our students and it hastens our adoption of forward-looking digital technologies for teaching and learning,” he said.
“People actually have a much greater understanding of their obligations under the Copyright Act that maybe they didn’t have before.”

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See Also: Access Copyright signs Model Licence with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (PDF)

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