Background

This Fair Dealing Decision Tool was developed by the Copyright Consortium of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC). The Consortium is composed of the ministers of education of the provinces and territories, with the exception of Quebec. (For further background on copyright and education, you can visit the CMEC Web pages on copyright. )

This Fair Dealing Decision Tool is a supplement to the Fair Dealing Guidelines, created to help teachers determine whether their use of a copyright-protected work is fair dealing. The tool helps teachers assess whether fair dealing permits them to use a copyright-protected work for students without permission or payment of copyright royalties. Fair dealing is only one of several users’ rights provided to educational users in the Copyright Act. For a description of other educational users’ rights, see Copyright Matters!

For more information, contact the ministry or department of Education Copyright Officer for your province or territory, listed here.

CMEC wishes to acknowledge that the Fair Dealing Decision Tool is liberally adapted, with permission, from the University of Ottawa’s Fair Dealing Decision Tree.