Educational copyright
Educational institutions have always been involved in copyright matters, as producers of copyrighted material, publishers, and users. Changing patterns of teaching—from analogue to digital, from in-class to remote teaching, changes in the academic publishing industry—the continuous concentration of the global market and rising increase in costs, together with various licensing practices, as well as changes in the law—have in recent years resulted in direct conflicts.
In the United States, foreign publishers challenged Georgia State University’s use of electronic copies; in India, foreign publishers challenged Delhi University’s photocopy practices; in Israel, a local publisher challenged the Hebrew University’s photocopying practices, and in Canada, a publishers’ collective organization challenged York University’s practices. Typically, fair use / fair dealing lies at the heart of such litigation. Yet, at the same time, these legal suits meet counter-measures, such as research foundations’ new requirements that the research they fund is published in open access forms, various jurisdictions consider legislative reforms, and we witness mega pirate libraries, such as SciHub. The one-day conference will discuss these cases and challenges.
