Links
Links to useful information about copyright on other websites from Canada and around the world.
About Copyright Legislation
- Copyright Act of Canada
- The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Paris Text 1971)
- Collection of Laws for Electronic Access (CLEA) - Administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), this site contains national legislative intellectual property texts, texts of treaties administered by WIPO, and bibliographic data about each legislative text and treaty.
- Education exceptions under the Copyright Act - The Canadian government has included exceptions in the Copyright Act for the use of copyright protected materials by and in educational institutions. These exceptions mean that certain uses of copyright protected materials can be made in or by educational institutions without seeking the permission of the copyright owner.
- Fair dealing is the ability to use copyright protected works for certain purposes and in certain ways without obtaining the copyright owner's consent or permission. The provisions for fair dealing are found in sections 29, 29.1 and 29.2 of the Copyright Act of Canada. Whether or not a use is fair dealing is determined on a case by case basis.
- Library, Archive, and Museum Exceptions - Libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) are important information repositories. Accordingly, the government has created special exceptions in the Copyright Act for these institutions, which allow for certain uses of copyright protected information without asking permission from the copyright owner.
Government Sites
- Copyright Board of Canada
- Canadian Intellectual Property Office - CIPO is responsible for administering patents, trademarks, copyrights, industrial designs and integrated circuit togographies in Canada.
- Department of Canadian Heritage - Houses the Copyright Policy Branch which, in conjunction with the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate of Industry Canada, is responsible for formulating and implementing an integrated Canadian copyright policy.
- Information on Copyright in Canada - Information on legislation, discussion papers and reports from the National Library of Canada.
Public domain, Creative Commons, and Open Access
- Creative Commons - Creative Commons licences are a tool that enables copyright owners to licence their works to the public using a "some rights reserved" model as opposed to a traditional "all rights reserved" model. All Creative Commons licences permit distribution, display and copying of works provided the copyright owners choice of terms is respected.
- D Space - A digital repository system that captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and distributes digital research material.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - Categorized, searchable links to free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.
- LibriVox - Provides free audiobooks from the public domain.
- Open Content Alliance (OCA) - Represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content.
- Project Gutenberg - A large collection of free electronic books.
- The public domain is comprised of all creative works that are not protected by copyright. Generally, works enter the public domain in one of three ways: When copyright expires, when the work is so old it was created before copyright protection existed, or when the copyright owner chooses to put a work in the public domain. When something is in the public domain it can be copied, used, or modified in any way without asking for permission.
To find out about the public domain registry that Access Copyright is working on creating with Creative Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation, please click here.
Other Collectives and Related Sites
- Audio Cine Films Inc. - Issues public performance licences on behalf of such companies as Disney, Warner Bros., etc.
- The Audio Visual Licensing Agency (AVLA) - Grants permission to duplicate audio recordings and to show duplicate music videos.
- Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) - Handles requests to purchase church liturgy.
- The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Limited (CMRRA) - A Canadian collective that administers reproduction of musical works, often called mechanical or synchronization licences.
- Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) - Handles the tariff for blank audio cassettes and compact discs.
- Copyright Clearance Centre (CCC)
- Educational Rights Collective of Canada (ERCC) - Represent the interests of copyright owners of television and radio programs (news, commentary programs and all other programs), when these programs are reproduced and performed in public by educational institutions for educational or training purposes.
- International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO)
- Music Publishers' Association of the United States (MPA) - Contains an open access directory of all American music publishers.
- Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers (SOCAN) - Licenses the public performance of copyright protected music.
- Socit qubcoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction (COPIBEC) - Canadian reproduction collective for the province of Quebec.
- Visual Education Centre - Issues film rights.
- World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - Copyright treaties ratified by the United Nations.
Miscellaneous
- The Copyright Website - Information about US copyright law.
- Fair Use and Copyright - Information about fair use in the US.
For a list of international reproduction rights organizations (RROs), please visit our Reciprocal Agreements page.