Click here to return to contents page case, the New Zealand universities argued that a number of the provisions of the Copyright Act allow them to produce course packs or to reproduce copyright materials in forms that might be held by, say, libraries in expectation of students coming to read them. Essentially that attempt failed in the High Court, and the clear bias of the Act in favour of universities negotiating directly with copyright owners was reasserted by the Court. The essential point for assessing educational institutions’ position in relation to copying for students is that the Copyright Act contains no general right to copy for students, and especially does not allow the most convenient practice of preparing readings either for distribution or so that they might be available at some point like the library, in advance of the students actually requesting each individual work. That direction appears likely to continue even in the new electronic environment as, in the recent review of the Copyright Act, the Ministry of Economic Development has largely rejected arguments by librarians and educationalists that digitisation of works ought to be allowed by the Copyright Act itself, as opposed to being allowed through licences. 1. Producing course materials The current statutory provisions do enable some limited copying for the purposes of education. Section 44 does allow copying of materials directly for class. However, it comes with a number of severe restrictions for those who seek to use the provisions. The Act allows the use of photocopiers or other electronic devices to copy teaching materials only in very rare circumstance. You are allowed to make only one copy; if you do make more than one copy you can copy less than 3 per cent, or if greater three pages of a work, so long as students are not charged for the copies. The current proposals for digital copyright reform would also allow for such copying to be made available to students digitally. The same proposals would enable educational institutions to cache relevant websites for reference by students. In light of the restrictions, educational institutions have, by and large, entered into licensing agreements with Copyright Licensing Limited, a body jointly owned by the New Zealand Society for Authors and the Book Publishers’ Association of New Zealand. Copyright Licensing Limited provides a blanket licence which enables tertiary educational institutions to reproduce copyright material in course-packs as long as the copying remains within certain key parameters. Under the terms of the licence there is no need to approach individual publishers or authors for permission. Copyright Licensing Limited samples course-materials produced by tertiary educational institutions, and its payments back to publishers and authors are based on that sampling. The most important of the parameters of the Copyright Licensing Limited’s licence are: • Copying of the whole or any part of a periodical article, or more than one article from the same issue of a periodical where these are on the same subject (that is, articles which are closely related and focus on a particular aspect of a subject). • Copying up to 10% of a work (other than a periodical article), or one chapter of a work, whichever is the greater. • Copying up to 15 pages of a single work contained in a collection of works, even if these works may have been separately published. • Copying the whole of an artistic work, such as an illustration or photograph, where it is published in a copyright work. • Copying the whole of an out-of-print work, subject to prior approval from CLL. • Making a repeat copy from a work within 14 days, provided that such copying is not made by or on behalf of the same staff member for the same paper or course of study (the Copyright Act permits repeat copying after 14 days). • Making sufficient copies to distribute to each student enrolled in the course, plus spare copies to replace lost copies. AUS Guide to Intellectual Property Rights
Page 31