I am not convinced no agency is necessary for the simple reason that the current royalty collecting agency, AC, is using their position as an effective monopoly to push a bad deal as pointed out by the CAUT briefing. (BTW: I consider calling it a bad deal to be excessively polite) For the monopoly to exist, suggests that they provide something their clients (universities) find valuable, otherwise universities would just not use their services and they would cease to exist. While digitial distibution costs are minimal, the cost of generating intellectual capital remains, so the funding to pay for it has to come from somewhere. My personal feeling is that it would be a good thing to have a foundation which is not royalty based, but does collect some monies to fund development and distribution. This way the creators can be compensated, there is a structure to manage it to the benefit of the universities and there is not a continuing cost to the material which benefits students.

My reading of the Sept 23 Copyright Board decision was that producing a fairness and equity are outside their scope. If universiities want a deal AC is not willing to give they must find someone else. But if a university choses to opt out, then they need to be COMPLETELY out. Perhaps with being completely out, there would be an argument that universities interrogated by AC would be able to bill them for the service. :-)

I agree it's a really bad deal, but given AC's behaviour and Copyright Board's position, I doubt a reasonable deal from AC is forthcoming. If you can do without AC, better to lead the way on a new publishing model that solves several problems.

Yes, I hear you about the "bad deal" euphemism :)

I'm not at all suggesting that doing without collecting agencies means leaving creators uncompensated. We do continue to compensate creators in numerous ways: library subscriptions to journal databases, library and course book purchases, etc. And if we're talking about academic creators, we well know that we get compensated in different ways: if not in royalties (which for even relatively successful academic books are still meagre) then in salaries and grants for doing and distributing research literature as part of our job.

The fact is that collecting agencies today have a worse track record in relaying royalties to creators and a conspicuously great track record in effective lobbying. AC is spending money it gets from students in Canadian universities and schools (AC has the K-12 sector over a barrel too, btw) to devise bigger and better sticks to beat them with.

And I expect they will continue to hit us with those sticks as long as the monopoly exists. Eliminating the monopoly means either cutting demand or creating a new supply. You have described some things that will cut demand and a new collection agency that is responsive to stakeholders creates a new supply. Personally, I really think a fresh look at any collecting agencies business model is also appropriate considering both costs and risks. I am skeptical that royalties, as opposed to some other approach,  are even appropriate for the majority of new IP development in this context.

Is that entirely right, though? I thought election law required students to vote where in the riding that they consider their permanent home:

According to section 43 of the Election Act, an elector must vote in the polling subdivision of the electoral division in which the person is ordinarily resident on polling day.

An elector is considered to have only one place of ordinary residence, and it is defined as "the place where the person lives and sleeps and to which, when the person is absent from it, the person intends to return". Therefore, if you temporarily live or work away from your place of ordinary residence, you must still vote in the electoral division in which you ordinarily reside.

For example, this would apply to:

A student from Red Deer attending university in Victoria and living in residence there, who ordinarily lives "at home" (spends holidays with the family and intends to return to Red Deer after the program of study is completed). The student would be eligible to vote in Red Deer.

A construction worker from Edmonton working in Fort McMurray and living in temporary accommodations (a motel or apartment) who ordinarily resides with his family in Edmonton. The worker would be eligible to vote in Edmonton. (http://www.elections.ab.ca/Public%20Website/faq.htm)

So technically, a student living in residence but going home after the school year should be voting in their home riding, right?

Thanks for asking these questions in the interest of clarification. As I understand them, the meanings of both "ordinary" and "temporary" are sufficiently open to interpretation as to allow the student to cast one's ballot on election day in the riding where one happens then to reside. The information here is categorically not provided to suggest any loopholes through which a student may cast more than one ballot - but rather to inform a student of how to exercise one's democratic right without undue interference on election day.

For more about the ordinary versus temporary distinction and its enforcement in Alberta electoral law, the Council of Alberta University Students advises as follows (at a link whose security is dubious, so I'm copying the text here instead):

Advance polls are already open and the first ballots are being cast in the Alberta provincial election, but not everybody is going to get the chance to vote. Post-secondary students are singled out by Alberta’s Elections Act as being required to vote where their family lives rather than in the community where they are a student.

“It’s appalling to see people turned away from voting because of a law that seems to treat students as children rather than adults,” said Zack Moline, U of L SU President and chair of the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS). “Students should not be forced to forego their right to vote just because they moved to go to school.”

University of Lethbridge student Storm Lafferty was turned away from an advance poll on April 20 in the constituency of Lethbridge-West. “I went in to get my ballot and they told me I don’t live here. I’ve lived here since September and just want to vote like everyone else in Lethbridge,” said Lafferty.

CAUS has been calling for Alberta to update its election laws since 2008 to make it easier for students to vote. Alberta is the only province other than Nova Scotia that does not allow students to choose to vote in the constituency they are studying in.

“It’s really disappointing to see this again this election. Students have met with government since 2009 on this issue to ensure no students were unfairly disenfranchised. We are going to continue to push for changes to the Elections Act after April 23 to ensure this is resolved before 2016,” said Moline.

For more information contact:
Duncan Wojtaszek, Executive Director
cell: 780-297-4531