Copyright is the right to produce or reproduce a work or a copy parts in any form. The Copyright Act is the legislation in Canada that sets out what you can and can’t do with other people’s copyright materials. Its purpose is to protect copyright owners while promoting creativity and the orderly exchange of ideas
Copyright protects literary, artistic, dramatic, musical works, sound recordings, performances, and communication signals. This includes a wide range of things, ranging from books, articles, posters, manuals, and graphs, to CDs, DVDs, software, databases, and websites
Copyright does NOT cover:
Among other things, copyright limits the amount that can be copied from protected materials. It also requires crediting authors when using their ideas and creative content
Using someone's copyrighted material without their permission/adhering to their conditions for use
Copyright infringement = using someone's work without rights (ie. not paying for usage)
Plagiarism = taking someone's ideas as your own (ie. not giving credit / not citing)
Copyright protection arises automatically when any one of the above types of works is created and generally continues for seventy (70) years after the author’s death, though this can depend on the type of work and where you want to use it. When you want to use a particular work in Canada, the safest approach is to assume that the work is protected by copyright, unless there’s a clear indication to the contrary or the author has been dead for at least Seventy (70) years
Note that up to the end of December, 2022, the duration for copyright protection was fifty (50) years after the death of the author. Works that entered the public domain prior to this date are not impacted
For more information about duration of copyright protection in Canada see A Guide to Copyright (Canadian Intellectual Property Office)
Copyright gives the copyright owner a number of legal rights, such as the right to copy and translate a work and the right to communicate a work to the public by telecommunication. These rights are qualified by certain exceptions that balance the copyright owner’s interests with the public interest in allowing use of works for purposes such as education and research
In Canada, copyright generally lasts for the life of the author, plus 70 years. Other countries have different rules, but use of a work in Canada is governed by the Canadian rules
The term "public domain" refers to works in which copyright has expired
Caveat: Original works may lapse out of copyright, however if republished with new original content, the added content is under a new copyright while the original (copyright expired) works are not included in that new copyright. EG. the copyright in Shakespeare's plays expired long ago, but published editions of his plays may contain added original materials (such as footnotes, prefaces etc.) that are copyright protected because the authors have used skill and judgment in creating the new material
Don’t assume that everything you find on the internet is in the public domain just because it is publicly available. Most of the material you find online is protected by copyright, however, you may nonetheless be able to use it for educational purposes because many uses will be covered by fair dealing or the exception for educational use of material publicly available through the Internet
Note: Some copyright owners have made clear declarations that certain uses of their copyright works may be made without permission or payment. The Reproduction of Federal Law Order, for example, permits anyone, without charge or request for permission, to reproduce Canadian laws and decisions of federally-constituted courts and administrative tribunals in Canada
Moral rights are additional rights held by authors of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. They consist of rights that protect the integrity of
Moral rights are additional rights held by authors of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. They consist of rights that protect the integrity of a work and the reputation of its author. The right of attribution is the right to always be identified as the author of a work or to remain anonymous. The right of integrity is the right not to have a work modified or associated with goods or services in a way that is prejudicial to the author’s reputation. These rights are important for authors to ensure they get appropriate recognition for their works and for prohibiting any prejudicial changes to their works
Intellectual property rights are outlined in Article 32 of the collective agreement between Mount Allison and the Mount Allison Faculty Association
The agreement states that in the absence of a written agreement to the contrary, ownership of all types of intellectual property rest with the employee who creates it. In the event that the intellectual property is the creation of more than one employee, all creators of the work jointly share copyright
Where a copyrighted work is produced by an employee with the use of the employer’s funds or its support or technical personnel, the employer may use such copyrighted work in its programs or for internal administrative purposes