Non-Title Specific Distributions

While Access Copyright licenses government, businesses, universities and colleges (for day to day copying), non-for-profit organizations, and libraries, it is impossible or impractical to collect information on the actual works copied under these licences.

Access Copyright distributes these royalties 50/50 to publishers and creators. These non-title specific royalties are paid as Payback^TM, publisher repertoire payments and through the use of other data that reflects what might have been copied in a specific sector. Payments for foreign copyright owners abroad are paid to foreign reproduction rights organizations (RROs).

More information on our distribution schedule is available by clicking here.

Publisher Repertoire

In cases where Access Copyright cannot identify the rightsholder or where it is impossible or impractical to collect information on the actual works used, we allocate a portion of these royalties via the Publisher Repertoire Payment. Additionally, 15% of all revenue available for distribution is also allocated to publisher and creator affiliates in recognition of the value that they contribute to our repertoire. The publisher repertoire royalties also include 50% of the royalties available for distribution from public libraries, the corporate sector and the not-for profit sector.

The publisher repertoire royalties are shared between all affiliated publishers based on their sales, advertising revenue and membership dues reported by them to Access Copyright.

Points are awarded based on sales as self-reported by the publisher subject to verification by Access Copyright. The total awarded points are divided into the total publishers' repertoire pool to yield a dollars-per-point figure, and then the dollars are divided accordingly.

Affiliated publishers will be eligible for the Publisher Repertoire Payment as long as they affiliated with Access Copyright by the end of the previous year.

For example, publishers who became an affiliate of Access Copyright by December 31, 2011 will be eligible for the Publisher Repertoire Payment in 2012.

Government Distribution Model

Access Copyright distributes royalties collected from government licensees (federal, provincial and municipal) 50/50 to publishers and creators.

For publishers, 5% of their share of the royalties is distributed through the publisher repertoire payment.

The remaining 95% of royalties is distributed using a government model that factors in the type of work copied (newspapers, magazines and journals and books). Our current model was developed using survey data which captured the source of materials photocopied by federal government employees. This was paired with additional data (described below) to identify rightsholders represented in the photocopying activities in the federal government.

Newspapers: 14% of the royalties are paid to newspaper publishers based on weekly circulation data. Circulation reports within an 18 month period from the following audit boards were used: Canadian Circulations Audit Board (CCAB/BPA),  Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), Newspapers Canada / Canadian Media Circulation Audit (CMCA), Association des médias écrits communautaires du Québec (AMECQ) and  Office de la distribution certifiée (ODC);

Magazines and Journals: 30% of the royalties are paid to magazine and journal publishers based on circulation data obtained in a study of federal government libraries;

Books: 56% of the royalties are paid to book publishers based on the circulation and holdings data obtained in a study of federal government libraries.

University and College Distribution Model

Access Copyright's distributes royalties collected under the day-to-day copying provision ("Part A") of our interim tariff with post-secondary institutions 50/50 to publishers and creators.

For publishers, 5% of their share of the royalties is distributed through the publisher repertoire payment. The remaining 95% is distributed using the most recent three-year data derived from coursepack reporting in the university and college sectors. This data is a reasonable approximation of the day-to-day photocopying occurring in post-secondary institutions across Canada (outside Quebec).

Media Monitoring

Access Copyright's media monitoring licence allows media monitoring companies and their clients, including corporations and governments, to copy and distribute press clippings quickly and legally. The royalties are distributed to publishers using data derived from the distribution of press clippings in this sector.