Carleton University joined more than a dozen Canadians post-secondary schools Thursday in announcing that it has no intention of signing a new copyright agreement which would have cost full-time students $26 annually.

The license agreement with Access Copyright was intended to ensure creators and publishers are paid fairly for the use of their copyrighted print and digital material, and to shield institutions from costly infringement lawsuits.

The agreement was negotiated on behalf of Canadian universities by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

But critics claim the legal risk of not signing such an agreement is low, and is instead a red herring being used to coerce schools into entering a regressive deal that takes money out of students’ pockets unnecessarily to pay for rights that are already covered.

“This is the wrong deal at the wrong time,” said Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. Geist, a Citizen columnist, is an expert in intellectual property law.

“We’re just at the moment when the laws are changing, when the way education functions is changing, and all of these things move us away from Access Copyright, not for it.”

Carleton has been carrying out its own copyright clearance process since it withdrew from the old Access Copyright tariff back in September 2011.

“This is the right decision for Carleton, because we already have all the policies and procedures in place to ensure that we are complying with copyright laws, rules and regulations,” said Peter Ricketts, Carleton’s provost and vice president (academic).

Carleton says copyright law and the digital landscape are changing rapidly, and the university is striving to maximize due diligence and to respond to any amendments made to the Copyright Act currently under consideration in Canada’s Senate.

Access Copyright is the copyright collective that collects fees from Canadian universities and colleges on behalf of publishers.

The University of Ottawa plans to announce Friday whether it will respect the agreement.