In this post, I provide some introductory remarks on copyright and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) for colleagues in the accountancy department at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) at Concordia University.
1. How does copyright work?
Copyright is enacted by a federal statute, whereby conferring economic and artistic rights to creators of qualifying works. These rights may be mobilized by contracts or agreements, often called licenses when they are limited in scope. Copyright agreements mobilize copyrights with regards to many components, such as monetary flows, duration and termination, geographical dimension, markets, exclusivity, transferability… the complexity and nature of copyright agreements is up to the parties involved, the federal statute allows for an almost infinite combination of arrangements. When mobilizing exclusive rights, an agreement is necessary.
Copyright ownership is usually vested in the original creator. In Canada, employers are assigned the ownership of copyrighted works produced by their full time & permanent employees, unless their work contract stipulates otherwise. At Concordia, the CUFA collective agreement reverts copyright back to faculty with the University retaining a license on all materials for educational purposes for a decate. On the other hand, the CUPFA collective agreement, governing contractual workers, is silent in the matter.
In recent years, the digital environment has introduced a new kind of agreement, open licenses, which facilitate the sharing, reuse or distribution of online content without remuneration. These include Creative Commons or open source software licenses. At Concordia University Libraries, we support the transition to open access through open textbooks, open scholarship, and Spectrum, our open archive. Open licenses are essential to the movement toward open access.
In addition to economic and artistic rights, the Copyright Act edicts exceptions that are afforded to user communities in specific and limited circumstances. The most notable are the “fair dealings” exceptions, not to be confused with “fair use” in the USA. In Canada, there are eight fair dealings: education, research, private study, news reporting, parody, satire, criticism or review. In the “CCH Case” of 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada established boundaries to fair dealings. Other exceptions include those for the print disabled, for libraries and archives, or for educational institutions. When one qualifies for an exception, use may proceed with neither an agreement nor a payment. Libraries are often tasked with governing copyright exceptions.
Also, Copyright establishes institutions that govern the artistic, cultural, creative or communication ecosystems. These include collecting societies which automate or streamline rights clearance, a specialized tribunal, review parameters as well as other measures. In the educational sector, Copibec is a collecting society which offers licenses for reprography or digital use of textual material, most notably coursepacks. Similarly, the Library offers digital collections under licenses to the university community.
Finally, copyright interacts with many other legal regimes, most notably provisions in the Civil Code of Québec, which govern contracts or image rights, or federal telecommunications regulations, which govern what is broadcast on national airwaves.
Every fall brings a new cohort of exceptional students to Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business. I have been asked to present, very succinctly, the library services and collections afforded to them upon joining us. They are in for quite a treat!
In fact, the library may seem a bit overwhelming to new students, given the breadth and depth of support to provide. So, I have prepared a short list of essential support provided by the library and librarians, specifically tailored for new graduate students. When in doubt, start with these elements.
The library website is your portal to our services and collections
Sofia, our NextGen search engine, covering the print and digital collection (with partial coverage of our market & industry resources). Search for academic articles and books here.
Blue “ribon” – below Sofia – provides for quick access to popular resources: Databases by subject; eJournals; Citation guides
Information for graduate students (we will cover these points in further detail below)
In Sofia and most article databases, you can upload bibliographic data directly to your own account on Zotero.
Organize your readings in folders for your seminars as well as chapters to your thesis. Create your own abstracts and reading notes in special fields.
You can create bibliographies automatically in hundreds of citations styles with the click of a button in your favorite. Check out our GradProSkills workshops on Zotero (or search YouTube!)
Be at the forefront of your discipline by harvesting RSS feeds on a special app or website. Subscribe to the table of contents of journals (find the RSS feed address on the Journal publisher’s website), setup an alert in article databases like ProQuest or enjoy webcomics for academics (like https://xkcd.com/)
TOC: Learn how to create a Table of Contents automatically in any word processing software… you need to encode your document properly
When researching a business topic or launching a new venture, information about industries, markets or competitors can be invaluable for MBA or EMBA students. In this session, we will cover resources from the Internet as well as licensed market and industry intelligence databases available from Concordia University Library. This is a workshop adapted from the “Entrepreneurship” course at the John Molson School of Business.
Locate industry and market reports from the Internet and the Library
Understand how to use datasets from Statistics Canada (Census & Data) and other national agencies
Develop a healthy information diet
COURSE OUTLINE
Finding sources with strong evidence to support claims
Articles: evidence from science and news
Know your market & industry: reports from IBIS Wrold; SME Benchmarking; Mergent Intellect
Using Google for business research: trade associations & governments
Statistics Canada for entrepreneurs: Census & CANSIM
Library services
1. Finding sources with strong evidence to support your business or academic claims
When making a claim in a paper or a presentation, you need to locate and cite the best source with strong evidence. To navigate the breadth and depth of the information universe, you need to recognize certain social, economic or political processes at play. Here is a simple framework to tap into various information lifecycles:
2. Articles: evidence from science and news news
Getting started: read articles from encyclopedias such as Wikipedia or International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences to get a sense of the literature. Look at the jargon used, navigate the “see also” links and download the articles cited therein. Books, such as your textbook, handbooks or monographs from Sofia, the library catalogue, are also relevant. Remember: do not cite encyclopedia articles, you have to access the peer-reviewed articles cited in encyclopedia entries!
Three words about Generative Artificial Intelligence: plagiarism; hallucinations and empowerment.
Now that we’ve sorted out some details, here are some tools and tips for locating business intelligence from articles:
Think about your business idea when searching, use a variety of keywords:
Some useful searches: household spending; retail trade sales; labour force survey; Neighbourhood income and demographics; family income; NAICS Statistics
Click on “Add/remouve data” when looking at a data table to toggle data dimensions
Olivier Charbonneau is an associate Librarian at Concordia University, Olivier Charbonneau is primarily interested in copyright issues as well as questions of open access and Web 2.0. He is a doctoral student at the Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal. He has over 15 years of professional involvement in library and cultural communities. He holds two masters degrees from Université de Montréal, one in information sciences and another in law, as well as an undergraduate degree in commerce from McGill University.
