Copyright Consternation & Confusion on Canadian Campuses as York Cogitates its Appeal

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Captain_copyright.jpg

The Canadian educational community awaits York University’s Notice of Appeal from the July 12, 2017 decision of the Federal Court in Access Copyright v. York University. Regrettably, in the meantime, two major universities – namely Western and York itself – have recently issued copyright statements that appear to be premature, ill-considered and even incorrect reactions to the York decision.

Western appears to have taken upon itself an automated total “book burning” approach to pre-existing online course material. Apparently, instead of relying on the general users’ right fair dealing provision in s. 29 of the Copyright Act, it has slavishly followed the destruction provision of the limited and arguably ill-conceived, poorly drafted and unnecessary “lesson” exception in s. 30.01. Such a seemingly misplaced reliance is directly contrary to the unanimous ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada at para. 84 of the CCH decision, where the Court held that it is unnecessary to rely on a specific exemption when the general fair dealing provision is available.  Obviously, any archived course material that has been legally posted with permission, by way of fair dealing, or otherwise does not need to be deleted. Western’s denial that this has anything to do with the York decision is unconvincing in light of an earlier announcement and, frankly, rings hollow in terms of the newly stated rationale of “system maintenance”.

Perhaps even more astonishingly, York issued the following overreaching and incorrect prohibition just 8 days after the decision was released: “Copyright law does not permit downloaded files (PDFs, etc.) to be loaded directly into Moodle or other course web sites.” Since when does copyright law categorically prohibit the uploading of “downloaded files” to a course website? Such uploading and sharing may very well be done legally, for example on the basis of permission, an implied right, pursuant to users’ fair dealing rights, or because the work may be in the public domain.

Both of these announcements are bound to cause considerable consternation and confusion just as classes are about to begin. The source for these highly problematic pronouncements is unclear in both instances. If two such high-powered institutions with access to so much copyright expertise (which, in the case of law faculty, was probably not called upon) can overreact in this manner, one shudders to think what institutions with less available expertise will be doing.

It may be noted that Access Copyright has so far refrained from availing itself of Justice Phelan’s unusual invitation to “apply for an injunction prohibiting the Defendant from reproducing or authorizing reproduction of all copyright protected works falling within the Approved Tariff and offering such reproduction for sale, rent or distribution until all amounts of royalties plus interest are paid.” Instead, York seems only too eager to effectively enjoin itself from what appears to be perfectly normal and indeed essential pedagogical practice.

York University has publicly committed to appeal the July 12, 2017 judgment of the Federal Court. Although it has until October 2, 2017 to file such a document (because July and August do not count for this time calculation), the normal deadline is 30 days after the decision. It is to be hoped that York does not delay much longer as the fall term begins. Such a document would, at least, provide the academic community with a “complete and concise statement of the grounds intended to be argued”, as required by the Federal Courts Rules. This may provide some further insight into how York is reacting to the ruling and what York believes it can overturn in this decision and generally on what basis. It would also, crucially, enable potential interveners to further assess whether and how they may wish to apply for leave to intervene in order to assist the Court with respect to arguments that could potentially be instrumental in determining the outcome (for example, see Prof. Katz’ blog here).

HPK

August 31, 2017:

PS - Following the above posting, York has replaced the above incorrect statement with the following:

Many of York University's licences do not permit copyright-protected content to be uploaded directly to Moodle or other Learning Management Systems.

That statement is somewhat ambiguous and hopefully does not suggest that a licensor can impose any conditions on works not covered by the particular licence. Moreover, the issue of whether a licensor can impose enforceable restrictions on users' fair dealing rights as provided by statute is an open question, particularly in light of two Supreme Court of Canada decisions. More about that another day.

Access Copyright's Press Release re: "Canada's Writers and Publishers Disappointed by U of T and Western's Non-Renewal of Licence"

I shall quote in its entirety Access Copyright's Press Release from just over an hour ago, with some highlighting:

***********

December 11, 2013 13:29 ET

Canada's Writers and Publishers Disappointed by U of T and Western's Non-Renewal of Licence

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Dec. 11, 2013) - Thousands of Canadian creators and publishers learned today that despite efforts to negotiate new and reasonable rates, the University of Toronto and Western University will not renew their current licences with Access Copyright.

"We are extremely disappointed," said Roanie Levy, Executive Director of Access Copyright. "Access Copyright's licence has enabled faculty to create efficient resource packages in both paper and digital form that are tailored to both their needs and those of their students. Millions of pages are shared in this way every year. Roughly 80% of the content copied comes from books. It is unlikely that access to these titles is licensed by the university through library or institutional subscriptions."

Instead of paying royalties to creators and publishers it is expected that these institutions will now rely on fair dealing guidelines, which are untested by law and closely replicate the scope of coverage in the Access Copyright licence. These policies represent a self-interested interpretation of what some in the education sector would like the law to be. Clearly fair dealing requires clarification. Renewing licences is difficult without fair dealing guidelines that work for everybody - educators, students, creators and publishers.

A comprehensive licence from Access Copyright provides pre-authorized permission, freeing faculty to systematically select and share resources without concern for copyright infringement, while ensuring appropriate rewards for the creators and publishers whose works are used.

Despite the enormous volume of usage of content in the Access Copyright repertoire, today's news means that, as of January 1, 2014, University of Toronto and Western University will end more than 20 years of cooperation with Canada's writing and publishing community.

For faculty who are accustomed to operating under Access Copyright licences, the termination will be accompanied by disruption and uncertainty. Faculty may be asked to change the way they share materials, or to assume greater personal responsibility for copyright, or to select different types of materials.

"Nobody wins in this scenario," said Levy. "That's why Access Copyright will continue its work in pursuit of a sustainable interpretation of fair dealing that benefits all those who read, write, teach and learn. Copyright should work for everyone."

There is much at stake for the future of Canada's classrooms. Access Copyright believes in a strong and vibrant culture of writing, publishing, reading, teaching and learning in Canada and is exploring new ways to meet the needs of educators and students in this new digital learning environment.

Access Copyright is a collective voice of creators and publishers in Canada. A non-profit, national organization, we represent tens of thousands of Canadian creators and publishers, and their copyright-protected work. Through agreements with sister organizations around the world we also represent the works of hundreds of thousands of foreign creators and publishers.

CONTACT INFORMATION

·     For media inquiries please contact:
Robert Gilbert
416.868.1620 x283 or rgilbert@accesscopyright.ca

******

Some quick and personal comments that, as always, don’t necessarily reflect the views of any of my clients:

·        Re: ”It is unlikely that access to these titles is licensed by the university through library or institutional subscriptions”. 

In my view, it’s also essential to ask whether AC has an adequately documented and legally solid chain of title to a sufficiently substantial amount of the repertoire needed by Canadian universities in connection with their teaching and research activities in order to justify AC’s alleged entitlement to collect tens of millions of dollars a year from Canadian universities, backed up with a “mandatory” tariff.

·        

E       Re: “Instead of paying royalties to creators and publishers it is expected that these institutions will now rely on fair dealing guidelines, which are untested by law and closely replicate the scope of coverage in the Access Copyright licence.”  

In my view, after an unprecedented three major and consistent decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada on fair dealing in the short span of eight years, and the inclusion of the word “education” in s. 29  of the Copyright Act as an explicitly allowed fair dealing purpose, it can hardly be said that the law on fair dealing needs more “clarification” at this time. Just because certain parties remain in denial about this, it doesn’t follow that the whole post-secondary sector needs to wait for AC and a certain few others to get up to speed.

HPK

UofT Governing Council Meeting of February 16, 2012 about the AC Deal

The Governing Council of the University of Toronto on February 16, 2012 spent some time dealing with an item that was initially intended to sail through under the radar. However, it got bounced from the “consent” part of the agenda to a fairly extensive discussion at the end of a long meeting.  The Vice President and Provost of the University, Cheryl Misak, attempted to explain and defend the UofT deal with Access Copyright (“AC”). The President, David Naylor, also made some interesting and important remarks. The Chief Librarian, Larry Alford also spoke briefly. They also allowed some frank statements and questions. What follows are some of their statements based on my notes with my comments interspersed in italics, and some conclusions. This does not purport to be a complete picture or even a partial transcript of what transpired.  Unless I use quotes, any words attributed to UofT officials are simply my paraphrase according to my notes. And my quotes may not be perfect because I am not a stenographer.  

UofT is to be commended for having allowed this Governing Council discussion to be live online.  It was sufficiently interesting that it would be useful if it were to be archived.

The Provost:

She emphasized that the UofT was in favour of “open access”.  However, she indicates that UofT is bound by a “statutory body” called Access Copyright. (“AC”)  (This is fundamentally incorrect. AC is not a statutory body. It is nothing more than a self-proclaimed collective with limited repertoire and limited rights. True, it has in place a controversial “interim tariff” imposed by the Copyright Board, which is a statutory body. But three dozen or so universities in Canada ranging from little Acadia to enormous York have legally opted out of it. The fact is that any two or more copyright owners can form a collective.  For example, Barry Sookman and I could do so, and the two of us really in fact and law do have a lot of actual “repertoire”. Indeed, I suggested back in 1999 that Canadian academics should form their own collective, but that idea has thus far fallen on deaf ears at the obvious existing institutions, such as CAUT or AUCC. AC is arguably vulnerable to legal attack on the basis of its lack of repertoire, lack or rights, and questionably legal indemnity scheme, not to mention its comparative inefficiency in terms of administration costs and well known distribution problems. However, for what may be more political than legal reasons, that has not yet happened.)

The Provost stated that AUCC, which is leading the charge at the Board hearing was “getting nowhere” with respect to AC. (Most would agree. Indeed, the AUCC case at the Copyright Board is not going well. It has lost its first reported court confrontation arising from the post-secondary Board case, and had costs awarded against it in a predictable ruling rejecting its attempt to introduce new evidence in the Federal Court of Appeal that had not been presented to the Board. Arguably, AUCC should have sought judicial review of the interim tariff itself at the outset, as I blogged about extensively over a year ago. That might have led to a very much simpler and more favourable landscape than we now see. There were good arguable grounds to overturn that interim tariff. But no attempt was made. Instead, about three dozen universities have opted out it – but into a situation of some avoidable uncertainty.

UofT was only being “occasionally” briefed by AUCC. (I’ve heard from some institutions that they first learned about important developments on this blog)

UofT believed that it could do better on this issue than AUCC. (That is understandable. Interestingly, UofT President David Naylor recently resigned from the Board of AUCC over its controversial statement on academic freedom. It seems that UofT and perhaps other institutions have some serious questions concerning AUCC. It appears that AUCC was completely unaware of the deal with AC until it was announced. So, if UofT didn't like the way that AUCC was handling the Board case, why didn't UofT take the initiative and use its considerable resources, prestige and leadership to start a new coalition that would continue the fight and take a "better" approach?)

There was a need to do “much, much, much better” (Agreed)

There was uncertainty over whether the proposed $45 tariff would include course pack copies. (It definitely did. That much was clear. Allocating costs and arrangements with off campus shops were and remain a messy problem to be resolved, but the proposed tariff was clear enough on this point and AC was quick to point out that course pack copies were included).

The reduction from $45 to $27.50 is a good deal. (Sorry to disagree. Given the CCH v. LSUC decision in 2004 and the fact the University already pays for a lot of what’s copied through direct licenses that allow for such copying, the huge reduction in paper copying, and the lack of repertoire and digital rights held by AC, it’s arguably a very bad deal and arguably much worse than even the Board might have awarded. AC has never made any public attempt to justify its $45 figure, which may as well have been and likely was pulled out of thin air. The real question is not what was saved in terms of the $45 figure, but why the overall amount being paid to AC has not been significantly reduced from the previous average amount per FTE university student paid to AC in 2008 was $18.64).

The cost of $27.50 is a huge saving for “lots of students”. (On balance, no matter whose figures are used, it’s a significant net increase on average. Based upon 2008 AUCC figures, it’s a 50% increase. Some students would have had little in the way of course pack costs).

The new deal includes digital rights. (Arguably, AC simply doesn’t even have any “digital rights” in most of whatever repertoire it does have. Moreover, some of these purported rights – such as for linking and display – are completely specious and do not even exist under the Copyright Act. There is no need to pay for or acknowledge rights that do not exist. Indeed, it is quite harmful to do so. Despite some vague language in the initial recitals, which mean relatively little, the agreement clearly and arguably very wrongly defines a copy to include:

·          “displaying a Digital Copy on a computer or other device”; and,

·         “Posting a link or hyperlink to a digital copy”).

UofT can get out this agreement if the law changes. (UofT is stuck with this agreement at least until the end of 2013. Unfortunately, there is a real chance that this agreement could very well influence the way the law changes, particular re fair dealing. U. of T. is probably the most important and influential university in Canada. The Copyright Board and hence the Courts and maybe even Parliament may see this agreement as the “new normal”, and and may adjust to it accordingly. Moreover, the agreement contains a “poison pill”, requiring UofT to block access to all digital copies made under the agreement if it decides not to renew it. If UofT has to comply with this provision, it may learn there is no way out without causing major disruption for the teaching and research done by its members.)

UofT hopes for favourable changes in the law. But AC is the “legal body that governs right now”. (That is completely wrong for the reasons stated above. Moreover, one can easily predict that AC will use the agreement and the upbeat media-releases from UofT and Western to strengthen the case against those “favourable changes”.  AC will likely say that two of the most important universities in Canada just signed this agreement with which they are quite happy and that this shows that there’s no need to change the law to give educators more rights, since the current law evidently is working very well.)

UofT would have been subject to “massive fines” for the inevitable “illegal copying” that would take place but for this agreement. (First, has UofT no faith in the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in CCH v. LSUC and the concept of fair dealing? AC has no power to “fine” anybody and has never successfully sued an academic institution or any member thereof. AC cannot sue anyone without dragging the copyright owner into the litigation. Moreover, even if UofT were found to have infringed a number of works, the Court has the discretion to reduce the damages down to a nominal amount if the university is acting in good faith. Moreover, three dozen other universities – some of which are very large – believe that they can operate completely legally without any blanket deal with AC).

Absent this deal, the Board might have ordered an intrusive or “Orwellian” (as Chief Librarian Alford calls it) survey. (Let’s see what UofT ultimately agrees to under the agreement. If the Board were given the right evidence and then overstepped, recourse could have been sought at the Federal Court of Appeal.)

UofT has already spent “a huge amount of money on interrogatories”. (That is no doubt true. However, as I’ve pointed out before, AUCC apparently did not take the usual step of seeking to have only a representative sample of institutions – such a few large, medium and small institutions  – answer these interrogatories. This is commonly done at the Board but was not done here. While UofT may or not have itself been spared this pain and expense, dozens of other institutions could have been. Even the Board pointed out this possibility).

“We have to do it –it’s the law”. (No. What AC says is not the law. See above.)  

President Naylor:

The President emphasized that there was uncertainty as to how and when the Supreme Court would rule, not to mention Bill C-11 and whether and how the crucial “fair dealing” issue would be resolved in any event. (That is true, but this agreement seems to assume the worst and the conditions and costs follow in turn. As for getting away from it if events turn out well, the problem is that this agreement may in itself influence that outcome – at least in Parliament and at the Copyright Board. Naturally, it won’t have any effect on the current Supreme Court fair dealing cases – but it almost certainly will worsen the position for those remaining in the fight at the Board, if in fact the fight continues. If the Board takes this agreement as a “proxy” for a free market negotiated deal, which is very likely, the agreement will almost certainly end up setting the standard for the “new normal” for fair dealing and other issues.)

The President suggested that AUCC and other university may come to similar conclusions. (Indeed, that is the fear and as I noted a few day ago, this already seems to be happening at formerly tough-talking UBC.)

The President pointed out that there is also the matter of the creators’ interests – ranging from “starving artists to text book authors”. (Indeed, some – though fewer than might be expected - faculty in university community are members of AC. However, unless they are very prolific and very well read  authors, they will normally receive less than $300 a year in royalties from AC – before taxes. None of the tenured faculty are starving artists. Most if not all of them will be making substantial six figure incomes and are expected to create academically important work, which may already be further subsidized though Canada’s elaborate and generous taxpayer-funded grant system. Many professors would gladly give up this “beer money” in order to be free of the constraints of AC).

Provost:

UofT would like to be like MIT and make as much available freely as possible, but in the meantime needs the AC indemnity to cover “missteps in the input”. (This is not what the indemnity does. It does not cover works on AC’s “exclusion list” or use beyond the terms of the license. It is very limited, and AC is trying to get out from under it – presumably because of its questionable legality).

On governance and ratification, the last clause about “conditional on governance approval” was included because Western and AC were involved. UofT believes that its report for information only to the business committee was all that is required. (So, why is the agreement “conditional upon applicable Governance approval”? Clearly, many in the UofT community, some of whom spoke at the meeting, do not accept that the agreement is a “done deal” and that it needs no further governance approval).

My Observations and Conclusions:

Among copyright experts, some will applaud the UofT deal and others will criticize it. Their reasons will vary. As President Naylor said, noting that many other universities had taken a different approach, this is not a simple matter.

Leaving aside the UofT deal and speaking in generalities, copyright law often does not admit of black and white or right and wrong answers, even to basic questions. That’s why the Supreme Court of Canada heard five copyright cases in two days last December. That’s why the rhetoric is so intense. Even the best copyright lawyers in the country strongly disagree with each other at times on what the law even is, not to mention what they think it should be.  In some cases, and depending on the issue, these views may be heavily influenced by the nature of the lawyer’s clientele. For example, a lawyer who normally acts for large content owners and collectives may see things quite differently than one who normally acts for users. Anything to do with “fair dealing” is particularly contentious. Whether copyright law is or ought to be getting to be more and more like labour law, where the normal convention is that law firms simply don’t play on both sides of the fence, is an interesting general question that merits further exploration at the appropriate time and in the appropriate forum.

I am trying not to be critical of UofT. It is my alma mater and I have spent many of the best years of my life there beginning at UTS a long time ago and ending at Massey College. I have the highest admiration both personally and professionally for its current President, who is caught between 8 rocks and 10 hard places, to extend a metaphor that was brought up repeatedly during the meeting in other contexts. As a great medical doctor, researcher, academic, administrator and compassionate humanitarian, he will want and should get no less than the best possible information and advice from all necessary sources. He understands what is at stake. I do not know the Provost, but she clearly has impressive academic credentials. I know that it is UofT’s tradition of excellence and strong belief in academic freedom that will hopefully, at the end of the day, result in it holding a thoroughly informed discussion as to whether, as urged by an open letter on behalf of faculty and students, the Governors should “suspend any further step towards ratification of the Agreement until the Agreement has been thoroughly reviewed, and, if appropriate, re-negotiated or discarded.”

I do believe that UofT is really trying to do the right thing here and should be congratulated for this attempt. However, this may require more input from more experts and lot more analysis. Part of such analysis must be an evaluation of:

• How does the university rank its priorities, i.e. administrative pragmatism, passing along costs,  academic freedom, access to knowledge, or risk aversion, to name some parameters?
• Whether the risk factor may have become seriously overblown, given even the most cautious view of the state of the law and the fact that, as far as I know,  AC has never sued any academic institution or member thereof and cannot even do so by itself and that even a “successful” lawsuit may still result in minimal damages? Apart from its victories against small “mom and pop” copy shops, AC has lost or retreated from every single test case in which it has been involved – including most notably CCH v. LSUC. Risk aversion must be realistic.  Moreover, there are interesting arguments for another day that UofT may actually be increasing its risks by entering into this deal.
•  Expectations incumbent upon UofT as one of  the largest and most highly regarded research universities in Canada and even the world.
• Whether the stated goals of moving towards open access will be enabled or hurt by this agreement.

This won’t be easy. But given the public policy implications in the short, medium and long term, and the inevitable scrutiny in the twitterverse (see #ACdeal) and the blogosphere and at such sites as Slashdot, such a further examination  may be essential and, indeed, inevitable.

HPK

U. of T. and Western Capitulate to Access Copyright

In an astonishing development that has caught all but a handful by surprise, U. of T. and Western have signed copyright deals with Access Copyright that appear to be an early and complete capitulation to an important battle over the costs and parameters of access to knowledge in Canadian post-secondary institutions.

See here and here.

In a nutshell:

• The cost will be $27.50 a year per full time student.
• The agreements include an indemnity and digital rights.
• The agreements will be until the end of 2013 and will renew automatically for one-year terms during which any party can cancel or renegotiate the agreement based on six months notice. A UWO official says “The new royalty is substantially below the amount initially sought by Access Copyright in its Tariff application before the Copyright Board.”

A few preliminary comments:

• This is an 800% increase over the current basic amount of $3.38 per student. Although this eliminates the current $0.10 a page cost for course packs, such course packs are increasingly irrelevant as more and more material is available legally online at no cost or through licenses that the university has already bought and paid for. Many students don’t need or use “course packs” anymore.
•                 It is unclear how this new deal will affect existing arrangements at U. of T., for example, where many course packs have long been printed off campus by third parties, who have been separately licensed by Access Copyright on the basis of a $0.10 a page “royalty”. Since this is to be an “all you can eat” rate, how and by whom is the course printing going to be handled and how will the costs be allocated? Will students who don’t need course packs have to subsidize those who do?
•  As Access Copyright itself admits, the $45.00 figure was only a “suggested” figure. It may as well have been – and probably was – pulled out of thin air. The comparable rate in the USA – for the relatively few universities (usually the smaller ones) that feel any necessity to pay it – is about $3.75 per head.
• Those familiar with the way the Copyright Board usually works might reasonably expect the final tariff to be less than half of the $45 “suggested” rate. Where there are two somewhat rationale rate proposals, the Board usually finds a position somewhere near the middle. Even the K-12 decision, which CMEC appealed, essentially split the difference between the two parties’ positions. $27.50 is a VERY, VERY GOOD DEAL for Access Copyright. In fact, it is about 50% MORE than Access Copyright now gets per university student on average overall in Canada – and this is almost 8 years AFTER CCH. For any number of reasons, including the proliferation of already paid for or cost free legal digital alternatives and reliance on the empowering fair dealing provisions of CCH, one would have expected the payments to Access Copyright to significantly decrease, not to increase.
• In the present case, the $45 “suggested” figure was pure conjecture even on the part of Access Copyright. Cutting this back by less than 30% is unlikely to be widely seen as a victory.
• The deal supposedly includes an indemnity and digital rights. There is plenty of reason to question whether Access Copyright has any chain of title to any significant amount of the repertoire required by Canadian universities, much less in the digital rights to such repertoire. Therefore, whether Access Copyright has the right to grant these digital licenses and offer any indemnity and whether the universities should rely on such provisions are good questions.
• Both of these institutions will almost certainly pass this $27.50 cost entirely on to their students and wash their hands of this issue. Once again, this is more than 8 times the current basic rate under the already controversial interim tariff that most universities have walked away from. Should two leading universities negotiate with their students’ money in a way that will affect the entire post-secondary sector in Canada both quantitatively and qualitatively for years to come?
• U. of T. has prepared a document for its student body rationalizing its decision, which is available here. The document contains too many questionable assumptions and assertions to discuss here. However, the most surprising aspect is that the settlement is apparently being rationalized by the rates being paid in Quebec.  Suffice it for the moment to say that this is quite possibly the least logical and appropriate rate precedent or proxy that could possibly have been chosen. The document also refers several times to the fear of possible retroactivity of any ultimate Board tariff. This fear is arguably overstated. 

Some preliminary questions:

• Why would two such prestigious and financially able institutions not stand up to fight against a proposed tariff that is so problematic and expensive?
•  Why did they not wait to hear what the Supreme Court of Canada had to say about fair dealing?
• Why not wait for Bill C11, which Access Copyright proclaims will enhance the educators’ position with the explicit  inclusion of "education" in "fair dealing"?
• What are the all-important terms and conditions that have been agreed to? For example, did the universities acknowledge that absurd provision purporting to entitle payment to Access Copyright for mere linking? Or the outrageous and privacy invasive demand to monitor professors’ email accounts? Or the completely arbitrary quantitative limits in the proposed tariff?
• What effect will this have on the future of current post-secondary case at the Copyright Board? 
• Will that case proceed and set a tariff that will be effectively “mandatory”? Were the other universities – which had reportedly budgeted two million dollars for this fight and then mostly “opted out” of any dealing with Access Copyright – aware of this development and, if not, how will they react? How can the publicly “agreed” upon and arguably much too high high rate of $27.50 NOT affect the outcome at the Copyright Board for everyone else?
• Was the AUCC – which was coordinating the universities’ fight at the Copyright Board – involved with or even aware of  this development?
• Of immediate concern, when will these agreements be made public? These agreements surely should be made public because tens of thousands of professors and students are now bound by them, whether or not they wish to be.  And tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars per year are now at stake if these agreements become the new normal in Canada. 

HPK


PS - Here is a a copy of the executed U. of T. license. It is not in searchable format. At the time of posting, I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

PS - Sam Trosow offers some possible answers to the above questions here.