Overview Over the past twelve years, Canadian copyright law has undergone a rapid and significant transformation. While there is no bright line as to when the change began, some identify as the starting point the Supreme Court’s confirmation in 2002 of the purpose of the Copyright Act (the Act) in Théberge v Galerie d’Art du Petit Champlain (Théberge): to balance the economic interests of copyright holders with the public interest in encouraging and disseminating works of the arts and intellect. 2 Following Théberge, in 2004 the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in CCH Canadian v Law Society of Upper Canada (CCH) further clarified that balance, explaining that exceptions and defenses to copyright infringement are more properly understood as users’ rights enshrined in the Act, and are necessary for the proper functioning of the law. A key example of a users’ right under the Act is fair dealing, which, in CCH, the Court said must be given a large and liberal interpretation to ensure that users’ rights are not unduly constrained. 3 In 2012, with the Copyright Modernization Act, Parliament amended the Act to include a number of new users’ rights, including “education” as a fair dealing purpose. 4 Also in 2012, and based on the Act as it was before the Copyright Modernization Act was passed, the Supreme Court reconfirmed the importance of fair dealing as a users’ right in three decisions belonging to the set of five often referred to as the “Copyright Pentalogy.” One of these decisions estab- lished that multiple copies of a short excerpt made by a teacher for use by students can qualify as fair dealing (Alberta (Education)). 5 Thus, as a result of this twelve-year period of clarification and activity, Canada’s copyright landscape today is markedly different from the pre-Théberge era. Seeing the Sea Change? Canadian educational institutions have taken preliminary steps to explore the significance of these changes. For example, many Canadian schools, colleges, and universities have adopted or updated fair dealing guidelines or policies in order to help their teachers, staff, and students make sense of fair dealing in education. These documents, such as those created for CMEC, 6 ACCC 7 and AUCC, 8 and the guidelines adopted by the University of Toronto and Western University, 9 seek to establish reasonable institutional practices for handling the often confusing and subjec- tive fair dealing analysis. 10 Additionally, many Canadian academic institutions have established and developed 14 Canadian Library Association www.cla.ca Feliciter • Issue #4 • August, 2014 • Vol. 60 Copyright Column Understanding “Large and Liberal” in the Context of Higher Education by Robert Glushko, Rumi Graham, Ann Ludbrook and Heather Martin 1 Margaret Ann Wilkinson (mawilk@uwo.ca) is CLA Copyright Committee editor for the Copyright Column. If you have suggestions for future columns please contact her or John Tooth (je.tooth@uwinnipeg.ca). Feliciter's copyright columns are authored by members of CLA's Copyright Committee, and are published after peer-review by the rest of the Committee. The opinions expressed in these columns are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Committee or of CLA on any given topic. No column is intended to provide legal advice.