ACCESS COPYRIGHT is warning creators and publishers to brace for yet another signifi-cant decrease in their royalty payments. The non-profit agency, which licenses Canadian artistic works to educational institutions, businesses, and others, estimates the amount it pays to creators will drop to $5 million in 2017, from $11 million the previous year – a 55 per cent decrease that is being directly attributed to a reduction in revenue from the educational sector.
Carol Bruneau
Like so many Canadians who work in cultural industries, Halifax author Carol Bruneau used to rely on her annual Access Copyright royalty cheques to help pay for major purchases. But in the past three years, Bruneau’s copyright payments have decreased by more than half. Where her cheques used to cover necessities like snow tires, this year’s payout was just enough to buy a small birthday present for her son. “Incrementally, it’s been going down for the past couple years, but I was really shocked when I got my payment [for 2016],” says Bruneau. “And then the warning letter that it would be 55 per cent less in the future – that’s whittling it down to really nothing. Peanuts.”