On Monday, May 29, 2017, ACCUTE and CSDH-SCHN jointly held an Open Congress panel: “Canada’s 2017 copyright review: academics’ perspectives.” Mark A. McCutcheon (Athabasca U) chaired the panel of three presenters: Sileshi Hirko (U Ottawa) made the case for re-framing copyright’s users’ rights (i.e. fair dealing) according to human rights and international rights agreements; Lisa Macklem (Western U) discussed the implications of intermediary lobbying (e.g. by Access Copyright) and international trade agreements (e.g. NAFTA) for users’ rights in Canadian copyright law; and Meera Nair (NAIT) showed how not only users but also authors depend on fair dealing. The panel was attended by a room full of delegates from various scholarly fields and professional associations, including those for librarians and scholarly publishers, as well as media reps. The discussion following the talks was varied and lively, on topics like how to take part in government public consulting on the copyright review, how different users’ rights and intellectual property regimens intersect or conflict, and not least how to not only preserve but strengthen Canadian scholarly publishing.

Nair_APleaToAcademics_ACCUTE-CopyrightPanel-OpenCongress2017b