Access Copyright – Updated August 25, 2009

The purpose of this entry is to offer a different point of view for Canadian creators from that offered by Access Copyright, the current mechanism for delivering writers reprography in Canada. My background is: legislation, finance and statistics. Please form your own opinions.

August 25, 2009

Q: A writer mentioned that Access Copyright suggested that they distribute revenues 2/3 to attributed, identified ‘books’ and 1/3 to unidentified ones.

A: A non-spun contrary explanation is this: overall, writers receive about 10% of total revenue (around $3.7 million) while almost 90% of the $37,000,000 goes to Access Copyright itself and mostly the large publishers.

Virtually all writer revenue is directed from a repertoire category, that meters out about $500 per year each (and there is a bit extra for identified ‘books’). Unlike for writers, the money that goes to unidentified publisher-owned ‘books’ is directed from a repertoire category, mostly to the large publishers, because the repertoire categories have been rejigged to award such money on the basis of annual sales categories – the larger the publisher, the more it gets. This also means that the smaller cultural publishers who publish most of the written prose fiction and poetry of Canada get far less.

August 24, 2009

Go to: creatorscopyright.ca for articles from a creators point of view on copyright issues.

Go to: Excess Copyright for an analysis by a copyright lawyer opposed to the recent K-12 decision and what it means for the Canadian education system, and not-a-lot Spot for writers.

Go to: http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86740/access-copyright-copyright-debate-will-rob-you-of-your-livelihood/, for a different point of view on the recent News Release from AC on getting invovled in the current Copyright Act amendment discussions.