Access Copyright

Are you a Cana­di­an writer?

Are you signed up with Access Copy­right?

If not, why not?

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I found out about Access Copy­right via a cir­cuitous path. One day a few years ago, my aunt — an Eng­lish teacher, cur­rent­ly work­ing in Chi­na — sent me an email con­grat­u­lat­ing me for my poem (my first pub­li­ca­tion, a poem named “The Two Sea­sons”) appear­ing in the provin­cial Eng­lish exam.

My response: “Huh?”

After an extend­ed con­ver­sa­tion with my aunt and a cou­ple bureau­crats in the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, I got a look at the exam, an expla­na­tion (which boiled down to “We thought we were in the clear, copy­right-wise, because of Access Copy­right”) and an an apol­o­gy for their unac­knowl­edged use of my copy­right­ed content.

And I signed up with Access Copy­right as a Cre­ator Affil­i­ate, and now every year I get mon­ey in the mail, just for hav­ing pub­lished con­tent on paper in Canada.

So, like I said: if you’re a Cana­di­an writer, and not an Access Copy­right affil­i­ate: why not?