Clarington school boards face huge photocopying bill

CLARINGTON -- Local school boards face unexpected six-figure retroactive bills, after a decision by the Copyright Board of Canada.

For the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, the retroactive bill amounts to $392,563. The Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board was hit with a bill for $157,499.

The regular annual bill, which generally amounts to about $90,000 for the public board, is also expected to approximately double, said board spokesman Greg Kidd.

The costs are a result of a retroactive tariff increase for copying magazines, textbooks, newspapers and other copyrighted materials, stemming from a decision by the Copyright Board of Canada.

The bills come from Access Copyright, a not-for-profit group made up of representatives of creator and publisher organizations from across Canada. The group aims to ensure legal use of copyrighted material.

It all goes back five years, when Access Copyright proposed a $12 tariff per fulltime equivalent student to cover school board photocopying of copyrighted material, as a result of a study which showed the majority of items copied are textbook pages. The Ontario Public School Boards Association has been fighting for a lower amount ever since, and the end result was a Copyright Board of Canada-set rate of $5.16, with a reduced rate of $4.64 per student for the 2005-2008 retroactive period.

"In the end, we were able to negotiate a lesser amount for the tariff than was originally proposed, and some relaxing on what would and would not be part of the copyright cost," said public board trustee Cathy Abraham, a vice-president of the provincial association.

"Nobody has ever said that we shouldn't pay anything, but it did take a lot of work to get the fee down to an amount that would not bankrupt school boards," Ms. Abraham said.

Only in Ontario are schools boards responsible for the costs, which are paid by education ministries in the rest of Canada.

"I think the Ministry is going to have to come in and help us deal with it," said Diane Lloyd, the public board chairwoman.

The matter is expected to be dealt with by the board in coming months.

Catholic trustees will also be meeting with the Province to discuss the issue, said the Catholic board's Nancy Sharpe, noting the board had been somewhat prepared for the bill.

"We kind of heard it was coming," she said. "We heard rumours in the spring, so we budgeted for it."