Creators
Learn about creator affiliation, the Payback payment, and other royalties and services for writers and visual artists.

Affiliating with Access Copyright

Want to become part of Access Copyright? Affiliate today using our online affiliation portal. 

At Access Copyright, we offer a variety of services designed to make it easy for our creator affiliates to be rewarded for the use of their works in schools, businesses, government and other organizations.

Affiliating with Access Copyright is free and offers many benefits for Canadian writers and visual artists.

What Can Access Copyright Do For You?

Royalty Payments to Affiliates: We manage licensing, collection of licensing fees and distribution of royalties on your behalf so that you can focus on what you do best - creating!

Payback: You will be eligible to receive our annual Payback payment. Each year, all eligible affiliates receive a share of the Payback payment depending on how much they contributed to the repertoire of works licensed by Access Copyright.

You will be eligible for Payback as long as you registered with Access Copyright by the end of the previous year.

For example, if you became an affiliate of Access Copyright by the end of 2018, you will be eligible for Payback starting in 2019.

Advocate for Your Interests: Access Copyright makes sure the interests of our affiliates are heard by policy and decision makers on issues important to them, such as intellectual property.

Creator Affiliation Eligibility Requirements

To affiliate with Access Copyright, you must:

  • Be a writer, editor, translator or visual artist published in print format, such as in a book, magazine, newspaper or scholarly journal for which you retain reproduction rights;
  • Be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and not reside in Quebec;
  • Be at least 18 years of age;
  • Not already be affiliated with any other reproduction rights agency (such as COPIBEC in Quebec).

All applicants who fill out the online Creator Registration Form will be required to submit photocopies or scans of sample(s) of their work for which they retain reproduction rights as they appear in the print publication, at least two (2) pieces of acceptable identification and their Social Insurance Number (SIN) before their application may be processed.

One to three samples per rights holder type (i.e. writer or visual artist) may be required. 

Access Copyright is unable to offer affiliation to creators under certain circumstances. These include if the only works you own are:

  • Masters or doctoral theses unless they have been reprinted in commercial publications;
  • Born digital format only (works appearing only online or in a non-print format). This can include blogs, websites, ebooks and other similar works;
  • Created as an employee or under a contractual arrangement where you have waived or assigned all rights to the work. This includes any work created while you were an employee of a publishing organization, unless there is a specific agreement between you and your publisher that you own the copyright to those works;
  • Dedicated to the public domain or is otherwise not covered by copyright; or
  • Unpublished.
Creators