Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42)

Acts Undertaken without Motive of Gain

Marginal note:Motive of gain

• 29.3 (1) No action referred to in section 29.4, 29.5, 30.2 or 30.21 may be carried out with motive of gain.

• Marginal note:Cost recovery

  (2) An educational institution, library, archive or museum, or person acting under its authority does not have a motive of gain where it or the person acting under its authority, does anything referred to in section 29.4, 29.5, 30.2 or 30.21 and recovers no more than the costs, including overhead costs, associated with doing that act.

Educational Institutions

Marginal note:Reproduction for instruction

• 29.4 (1) It is not an infringement of copyright for an educational institution or a person acting under its authority for the purposes of education or training on its premises to reproduce a work, or do any other necessary act, in order to display it.

• Marginal note:Reproduction for examinations, etc.

  (2) It is not an infringement of copyright for an educational institution or a person acting under its authority to

  • (a) reproduce, translate or perform in public on the premises of the educational institution, or

  • (b) communicate by telecommunication to the public situated on the premises of the educational institution

  a work or other subject-matter as required for a test or examination.

• Marginal note:If work commercially available

  (3) Except in the case of manual reproduction, the exemption from copyright infringement provided by subsections (1) and (2) does not apply if the work or other subject-matter is commercially available, within the meaning of paragraph (a) of the definition “commercially available” in section 2, in a medium that is appropriate for the purposes referred to in those subsections.

Marginal note:Performances

29.5 It is not an infringement of copyright for an educational institution or a person acting under its authority to do the following acts if they are done on the premises of an educational institution for educational or training purposes and not for profit, before an audience consisting primarily of students of the educational institution, instructors acting under the authority of the educational institution or any person who is directly responsible for setting a curriculum for the educational institution:

• (a) the live performance in public, primarily by students of the educational institution, of a work;

• (b) the performance in public of a sound recording, or of a work or performer’s performance that is embodied in a sound recording, as long as the sound recording is not an infringing copy or the person responsible for the performance has no reasonable grounds to believe that it is an infringing copy;

• (c) the performance in public of a work or other subject-matter at the time of its communication to the public by telecommunication; and

• (d) the performance in public of a cinematographic work, as long as the work is not an infringing copy or the person responsible for the performance has no reasonable grounds to believe that it is an infringing copy.