Copibec is a non-profit social enterprise specializing in copyright management. Since its creation as a copyright collective in 1997, it has belonged to a community representing more than 30 000 authors and more than 1 300 publishers.

Copibec’s mission is to apply a collective management approach ensuring that the rights of authors and visual artists as well as their publishers are respected when their text- and image-based content is used.

Copibec is a valuable resource and essential partner for collectively managed content and copyright information.

Created in 1997 to manage photocopying rights for books, Copibec has continuously evolved to better represent text and image content producers and take advantage of new digital technologies.

Representation and repertoire

Over the years after it was created by the Union des écrivaines et écrivains québécois (UNEQ) and the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres (ANEL), Copibec has expanded its representation. In addition to managing book rights by representing authors (UNEQ) and their publishing houses (ANEL), our community grew to include visual artists (RAAV), freelance journalists (FPJQ, AJIQ) and periodical publishers (SODEP, Hebdos du Québec, Quotidiens du Québec). By doing so, we also broadened our repertoire (catalogue) of available content.

At the international level, we have entered into agreements with over 33 foreign copyright collectives, allowing the books, newspapers and magazines from other countries to be added to our repertoire.

Digital rights

After initially specializing in managing paper-format reproduction rights, Copibec has moved forward as technologies have advanced. We have expanded our repertoire to include digital books, newspapers and magazines and developed new digital tools and services.

Foremost among them is our Savia online rights management system deployed in 2012 to make life easier for thousands of copyright owners and content users. For the education sector, we developed our SAMUEL digital content platform (2014), started offering the Get It Now service (2015) and created our DONA service (2016) for students with perceptual disabilities.

Our team of copyright specialists offers a wide range of products and services customized to meet the needs of content users as well as copyright owners. Here are some examples of what Copibec can do:

• Provide user licences to organizations and businesses
• Issue pay-per-use licences
• Manage reproduction rights and royalties on behalf of copyright owners
• Administer the SAMUEL digital content platform designed for the education sector
• Offer the DONA service for students with perceptual disabilities

If you have any questions about reproduction rights or content use in compliance with the Copyright Act, feel free to contact our team of specialists.