Copyright Modernization Act: A guide for post-secondary instructors

In November 2012, the educational provisions of the Copyright Modernization Act were proclaimed in force, thereby introducing a number of significant changes to the Canadian Copyright Act. These changes include the expansion of fair dealing to include the purpose of education, the addition of new educational exceptions for the online transmission of lessons and the use of work freely available through the internet, and a number of amendments that make existing educational exceptions more technologically accommodating. This paper considers the significance of these changes for post-secondary instructors, first contextualizing the changes in relation to recent fair dealing jurisprudence, and then considering their significance for everyday instructional practice. Drawing on influential court decisions and the commentary of academics and lawyers, the paper not only describes how the changes to the Copyright Act have expanded the rights and exceptions available to instructors, but also identifies a number of unresolved questions about how the changes should be applied in practice. Despite these areas of uncertainty, the paper concludes that the changes bode well for post-secondary instructors, as they relax many long-standing restrictions around the use of copyrighted works for educational purposes.