Bill C-11 (Historical)

Copyright Modernization Act

An Act to amend the Copyright Act

This enactment amends the Copyright Act to
(a) update the rights and protections of copyright owners to better address the challenges and opportunities of the Internet, so as to be in line with international standards;
(b) clarify Internet service providers’ liability and make the enabling of online copyright infringement itself an infringement of copyright;
(c) permit businesses, educators and libraries to make greater use of copyright material in digital form;
(d) allow educators and students to make greater use of copyright material;
(e) permit certain uses of copyright material by consumers;
(f) give photographers the same rights as other creators;
(g) ensure that it remains technologically neutral; and
(h) mandate its review by Parliament every five years.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Copyright Modernization Act

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that digital locks would have some very serious consequences. They are the key point of the bill. I think there are many other elements like that in Bill C-11 that could cause problems.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-11 is written entirely technological neutral and that is important.

The member discussed a few items. I believe she touched a little on the issue of royalties and so forth. We refer to that as an iPod tax, the copying levy that her party endorses.

Part of the problem with the position of the members opposite on this and the reason why digital locks are so important is because storage of music, movies and so forth will not actually be on devices like this anymore. People will not buy them on cassettes, DVDs or CDs. I am sure members have heard of the iCloud that Apple has just launched. I am sure we have seen things like Rogers On Demand, Cogeco On Demand and Shaw On Demand. People just push the button and they have an inventory of movies.

Digital locks are absolutely imperative to be put in place so that material cannot be stolen, so that the rights holder, which is not Rogers or Shaw in most cases, is actually protected and paid for the use of that material.

That is why it is important. It is a business solution.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I was speaking about the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, who said:

The U.S. Piracy List is supposed to be reserved for countries on the margin of international law. Instead it is being used as a bully tool to undermine Canada's international trade reputation.

If the Conservatives are prepared to use their majority to impose this legislation without amendments, Canadians will be deeply disappointed by a government that would ram through a bill that lacks balance and takes away some rights from Canadian authors and creators.

The NDP believes that it is high time to update the Copyright Act but that Bill C-11 has too many obvious problems. We will therefore work on amending the bill so that it better reflects the interests of Canadians. For that reason we are proposing, among other things, to delete from the copyright modernization bill the clauses that criminalize the removal of digital locks for personal, non-commercial purposes. Furthermore, we support shorter sentences for those found guilty of violating the Copyright Act because this would prevent the excessive recourse to litigation against individuals, a situation that is problematic in the United States.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, because this is an important bill whose purpose is to make changes that have been needed for a long time. Certainly this is a somewhat complex issue, since the last version of this act dates from 1997, and the technology has changed a lot since then.

Copyright is a sensitive thing, especially in the electronic age when file sharing and a plethora of content are available on the Internet. Consumers should not be able to download from illicit sources on line without having to pay. Reform of the Copyright Act was needed in order to provide greater protection for our creators. It is also essential to update the Canadian legislation, which is several years behind what is provided in international agreements.

While the government’s intention to focus the battle against piracy on the big offenders is laudable, unfortunately, as my colleague said, Bill C-11 does not take into account the needs of the creators. With this bill, the Conservatives have intentionally avoided addressing the question of a possible expansion of the private copying exception, a measure that has been proposed by the NDP and a number of experts.

In Bill C-11 the Conservative government has brought us back exactly the same content as Bill C-32, which had already been severely criticized by the arts community. Bill C-11, unfortunately, does not achieve the balance that is needed between the rights of creators and the rights of the public. In spite of the fact that a number of artists, experts and spokespeople have addressed the parliamentary committee on this in recent months, the government is once again proposing a bill on which there is no unanimity.

And so the Conservatives have ignored the opinion of the experts heard in committee and the conclusions from their own copyright consultations in 2009. The result is that they have brought in a bill that could do more harm than good, and that is why we need to understand it clearly. We can therefore say that although a number of worthwhile proposals have been made and although there is a will on the part of politicians to work together to achieve a fair bill, the government has continued to turn a deaf ear to those proposals.

The National Assembly of Quebec has unanimously denounced this legislation, which does not ensure that Quebec creators receive full recognition of their rights and an income that reflects the value of their creations. In addition, on November 30 of last year, 100 Quebec artists, including Luc Plamondon, Robert Charlebois, Michel Rivard and Richard Séguin, travelled to Ottawa to tell the Minister of Heritage and Official Languages, the Minister of Industry and the entire Conservative caucus that they did not want the copyright bill in the form the government is stubbornly presenting.

Bill C-11 favours the big players in the creative world. Unfortunately, the small artists and artisans are not as lucky. What Bill C-11 does is to attack artisans’ copyright directly, and in so doing it contributes to destabilizing the low incomes of Canadian artists. An example of the revenue that minor creators will soon have to forego is the tens of millions of dollars now paid to authors annually by the education system. From now on, the education system will be able to use our authors’ works without having to pay compensation. Certainly the NDP supports the use of these works for educational purposes, but it believes that this should not be done at the expense of the creators.

Nor does Bill C-11 provide for any compensation for downloading to an iPod. A solution suggested by many, to impose a $2 to $5 levy on iPods and other portable digital players has been dismissed by the government, once again at the expense of creators. Nor does this bill contain any provision in relation to Internet service providers obligating them to pay fees for music downloaded through their networks. The government is simply calling on providers to be partners in the fight against piracy by forcing them to take receipt of copyright violation notices issued by creators and the organizations that manage their rights.

Another controversial point in this bill has to do with digital locks. Under this provision, it will be illegal, for example, for a consumer to break the digital lock installed on a DVD that the consumer has purchased, just to copy it onto a personal computer. That could become particularly problematic when locks are installed on educational material.

Artists do not benefit because they are deprived of millions of dollars in levies, and students do not benefit because they will have trouble accessing the educational materials they need. Certain copyright owners, the big companies, will benefit.

The Copyright Modernization Act gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Even though the bill contains certain concessions for consumers, these are undermined by the government's refusal to compromise when it comes to the most controversial copyright issue in this country, the digital lock.

When it comes to distance education, for example, the provisions in the new bill mean that people living in a remote community will have to burn their class notes 30 days after downloading them. That is not an improvement on the current situation and it is not an appropriate use of the copyright regulations.

In summary, it appears that all efforts to reform the Copyright Act in Canada in recent years have had very little impact on the creation of a balanced system between the rights of creators and those of the public. One only need look at the demands made by the big content owners in the U.S. to see whom this bill will really benefit. It is a valid question: have the Conservatives forsaken Canadians at the expense of copyright interests in the United States?

Recent documents published by WikiLeaks clearly show that the Conservatives have acted against Canada's interests. The documents paint a dismal picture of the Conservatives who have conspired with the Americans in order to force the adoption of copyright legislation similar to that in the United States.

New documents reveal that the government encouraged the United States to put Canada on their piracy watch list in order to pressure Parliament to pass new legislation that would weaken the rights of Canadian consumers.

In the words of the NDP critic for copyright and digital issues, Charlie Angus, “The U.S. Piracy List is supposed to be reserved for—”

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would inform you that I will be splitting my speaking time with my colleague from Québec.

Today we are talking about Bill C-11. Never has a name suited a bill less. This is not a bill about copyright, it is a bill about the denial of copyright. Coming from a Conservative government whose trademark is hate, fear and despair, this is not surprising. It is not surprising that this same government, which has cut international representation of artists, is again attacking people who advocate something other than hate, fear and despair.

With this bill, the Conservatives are giving the digital industry complete ownership of Canadian culture. It has all the rights, all the resources, and the financial sacrifices made for it. Canadian artists are no longer anything but foils. They are no longer entitled to any financial compensation for their works.

This evolution is taking place internationally. There are two trends. The American trend is to simply try to install technological locks to prevent copying, and give the owners of search engines or Internet sites the right to penalize people who violate their rights or have them sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The artists are the ones forgotten in this debate, because there are also effects on private copying in Canada. They are also totally ignored and deprived of the economic right to earn a living from their works. This bill gives the owner of the Internet content complete power by controlling a lock. It also gives them all the rights in copies and the right to deprive artists, what was called private copying.

At the time, this was not a problem. There were vinyl records and cassettes. They were produced and sold by the unit. Artists received royalties on their works with each sale. When the compact disc and the computer arrived on the scene, there was a financial problem. Records, films and any artistic content could be copied. The response from the Canadian industry at the time was to add a levy for private copying to the price of a compact disc. That generated very substantial sums for Canadian artists—over $60 million. But the technology has continued to evolve. We have seen the emergence of new digital devices like the iPod and the BlackBerry, which allow a work to be reproduced ad infinitum without necessarily having a physical medium like a CD.

For the first few years, we got around the problem by expanding private copying rights from CDs to all digital equipment. This allowed artists to continue receiving the same amount of money. Unfortunately, the legislation was not adapted in that respect, which meant that all of these private copying rights became obsolete. The owners of these rights were deprived of their revenues. For the industry, this meant the end. The music recording industry disappeared. Manufacturers do not produce records anymore. Artists now produce their recordings themselves. The large corporations provide only marketing and commercial support.

Sales have dropped considerably. Not only did these people lose all financial support, but they were told to simply accept it. Educational institutions were even told they had to give up their rights. It was left to artists themselves to pay for the rights of educational institutions to have artistic material.

The creation of these infamous digital locks, intended to prevent piracy, led to two major problems. The first has to do with consumers' rights. There is no guarantee that consumers will really get the artistic performance for which they have paid, to be able to put it on their computer, through the Internet. This basically depends on the capacity of the search engine, the website they are using, the links. It depends entirely on all of that.

The second problem has to do with artists’ rights, copyright, which is completely absent from this bill. It has completely disappeared. It is no longer there. That is why Bill C-11 is not the Copyright Modernization Act, but rather an act to deny copyright. It cannot be called copyright if the individual who has produced or invented something derives no financial benefit. That person's work is being stolen and the government is letting it happen.

It is quite clear whose side this government has come down on when it comes to the new digital economy and the Canadian artistic community. Once again, the government has decided not to be Canadian. It has decided to favour foreigners at the expense of our economic rights and our cultural rights—because Canadian culture is also at stake. The Canadian economy is financially well off. Prosperous, according to reports. Unfortunately, it has been determined that this prosperity will not trickle down to the artistic community, that this community will be deprived, and that only foreigners will benefit from it. Canada is being stripped of a key part of its makeup: its culture. Culture has never been a strong suit of the Conservatives, nor of this particular government.

Need I remind you that this very same government slashed budgets for culture and is cutting the CBC budget, and that it continues to cut and cut deep. It even presided over the demise of grants for international representation. The government hates everything to do with culture. It is an area over which you have no control, and that which you do not control, you usually do away with. That much does not change. Once again, you are attempting to do away with something that you do not like, that you do not control, that is not there to serve you, that does not fit in with your philosophy on wealth creation. It is as if creating something, creating a cultural asset, is not in and of itself important. You do not give it an economic value. You do not assign it a monetary value.

The problem is that, as a consequence, the Conservative government is robbing Canada of its soul. It has deliberately decided to do away with everything that artists need. What do you expect them to do? How do you expect them to live with no income? These people should still have a right to earn income for what they have created, but you have decided to steal from them legally. Because that is what it is, theft.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, it is clear that this bill is really like an 18-wheeler that arrives at the homes of songwriters and copyright owners only for them to find that it is empty. In reality, there is nothing to compensate for losses related to the private copying system.

We will remember how it happened and it is not just theoretical; it is very real. In the past, music was purchased in a different way. Today, we have music on our computers, our BlackBerrys and our iPods, and it should have been purchased. There is no problem at all if it was purchased through businesses such as iTunes, Amazon or Archambault.ca. However, we know very well that such is not always the case and that the recording industry is suffering great financial losses because material is available online, despite the fact that it may be coming from places where it is illegal to download material.

This shortcoming shows how completely out of touch this government—a government that claims to want to protect Canadians' jobs and recognize this value—really is. In reality, where will copyright owners' money come from if they cannot sell their material or if it is being stolen or literally plundered from the Internet? Clearly, this bill cannot be passed as is. We will have to work very hard to add something, particularly with regard to the private copying system.

I fully understand rights holders when they say that it does not make sense, that with the right to copy that the telecommunications and broadcasting media are being offered, that the steak, if you will, is being taken off the rights holders' plates, and that the potatoes and carrots may vanish as well. Let us look at the basics: when songwriters, CD companies, producers, and rights holders produce music, they expect to have it aired by broadcasters. To do this, the broadcaster makes an initial copy and inserts it into the broadcasting system. Everyone is glad the broadcaster is giving the song airtime, but nevertheless a mechanical reproduction right has until now been enshrined as part of the copyright. Now songwriters and rights holders are being told that the broadcasters will not be bound by this obligation. They will be permitted to make their working copy without fear of retribution. This is not the major issue affecting rights holders when it comes to Bill C-11, but it is just one more consideration. It adds insult to injury.

To my mind, the major problem remains the private copying system, which applies almost entirely to outdated platforms. The private copying system provides a form of royalty earned from each CD-R. But we all know that consumption of CD-Rs has fallen to infinitesimally low levels, because portable digital players such as iPods, MP3 players and other such devices have completely replaced the equipment and song transfer system used with CD-Rs.

The levy system is dying, and Bill C-11 is turning a blind eye. Nevertheless, this problem must be addressed. It is the biggest problem currently facing the rights-holder community. Not only is the initial mechanical reproduction right being taken away in broadcasting, copies may be made free of charge in educational and learning environments. One can understand how rights holders might be sympathetic to this situation, but royalties should still be paid all the same, although they could potentially be waived in writing. Rights holders may receive a request from a teacher and make exemptions in writing, or exempt someone from paying a fee in a particular context. Once again, the bill would stand in the way of this and seeks to abolish private copying, abolish the broadcasters' copy, and also remove the tiny amount of money that would otherwise have come from the education sector. What are artists and rights holders left with when it comes to copyright? This really must be addressed.

One possible solution could be to look at who benefits from this situation. As members know, when we look for music on the Internet, there is a place to buy music. But some people might also look for music elsewhere. That increases information trafficking on the Internet.

There are people selling high-speed connections with varying upload and download bandwidth limits. Could the government at least show an interest in exploring other avenues to compensate for this loss to the private copying regime? That is the essence of it. In the case of transfers over the Internet, that would be the least we could do for all of the subscribers we represent. The Internet has replaced traditional in-store CD sales. If we cannot apply the private copying system to devices like MP3 players or iPods, what is left for copyright owners? These people are left out in the cold with a new bill that should be providing some relief, since our copyright legislation is way behind—stuck in the times of Séraphin Poudrier—compared to the rest of the world. It is time for us to revamp copyright legislation. And with copyright collectives in particular, we have a long way to go.

In conclusion, I would like to make sure that we have a chance to look at other avenues to compensate for losing the private copying system.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to speak to Bill C-11, because I have a special interest in it. I spent nearly 20 years in the recording industry, which has seen some hard times. In our opinion, there can be no objection to reviewing the Copyright Act. Obviously, today, in 2011, we are lagging behind at the international level in terms of modernizing the law. It is high time it was done. The other major western countries have done it and it is our turn. It is really past time.

We deplore the fact that the bill is a little like Swiss cheese: there are a lot of bubbles, a lot of holes, in terms of protecting rights holders and creators. We are talking about this bill in theoretical terms but, in concrete terms, as my colleague was saying, the way we consume cultural products today is different. Before, we bought a record for $15 or $20, we took it home and we listened to it. While the recording industry has kept up its production rate and budgets have declined slightly—since with technological progress we can now record music more cheaply—it is still a cultural industry. Investors, industrialists and consultants who support a creator invest large amounts of money to make a product that will sell.

We are not talking about a minstrel strumming a lute on the church steps. These are people who have created songs, and other people who saw a business opportunity there and said that everyone is going to want that song or that album and will be prepared to pay a price to buy it and listen to it. What the recording industry has experienced is unparalleled in terms of plummeting revenues.

I will give you a brief overview. The complete operation of producing an album, which includes recording, promotion, video clips, launches and so on, calls for a budget of about $100,000. That is a very ordinary budget in an ordinary recording industry. We are not talking about a huge operation like a Michael Jackson album made before his death, that might have cost $1.5 million to produce. We are talking about an album that would have cost $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 and all the associated expenses.

To recover that investment, the companies, the recording industry—and that means jobs for people who work in this field, as I was lucky enough to do—would sell the record for between $15 and $20. Today, with modernization, the Internet, digitization of music and the incredible capacity to create master quality copies, this is no longer the same generation as when we were young. Then, we copied music onto cassettes and there was often more background noise than music. That is no longer the case today, and that is the issue.

If a digital version of a song exists, thousands of copies can be made in a few hours and the rights holder will have been deprived of his due. When people today buy music on the Internet, they sometimes buy the complete album but usually they buy the CD in a store. Those who buy their CDs and their music on the Internet very often take a piecemeal approach, by downloading one, two or three songs at a time. The retail price is $1 or $1.49. That means that the recording industry, as it attempts to recoup its production and marketing costs of approximately $100,000, did so based on a price of $15 to $20 per CD. Nowadays it has to make do with $2 or $3.

I sincerely believe that no other industry has experienced such a drop in revenue in such a short time. We are talking about huge percentages, from $15 or $20 to $3. This is unprecedented. The industry is already on its knees. We must enact legislation now on behalf of the rights holders, so that the situation can be corrected.

Copyright is essential. Allow me to quote the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages who, referring to Canada, stated that the cultural sector contributes twice as much as the forestry industry to our GDP.

The arts and culture sector generates spinoffs of over $46 billion and provides work for over 600,000 people. This is an industry, a sector of the economy, that is extremely important.

There are problems with Bill C-11 in relation to YouTube, the education system and other related areas. The biggest problem, however, has to do with the collective copyright collection system, commonly called private copying.

Earlier, I gave an overview of how we used to consume music. We all know that a decade or so ago, the CD-R hit the marketplace. Using an ordinary home computer, it was possible to copy a disc—ideally, one that had been purchased—and immediately make a copy of it that would be identical from a quality standpoint, with only the graphics missing. This craze led to creators, the rights holders, feeling like they were missing out, and they successfully went about putting in place a compensation system. Compensation is the right word here. The private copying system is a form of compensation for losses incurred as a result of the development of a new technology.

This system, which initially applied to audio cassettes, CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, generated significant amounts of money. In 2008, for instance, the figure was $27.6 million. The following year, the amount raised through this private copying compensation system dropped to $10.8 million and it continues to decline. Why? Certainly there are those among you who have purchased CD-Rs at one time or another, and very few people buy them these days. As far as music consumption is concerned—I am talking about legal consumption in a suitable format—people now copy their music onto a portable digital player, an iPod or an MP3. The format the royalty was based on, in other words the CD-R, has become completely obsolete by the current changes.

That is why the copyright owner lobbies have asked that this private copying compensation system be extended to include portable digital players or iPods. As the hon. member was saying earlier, the members opposite reacted by wearing t-shirts that said No iPod tax. This is great. It is a very good response to the creators who were feeling forgotten, cheated and abandoned.

What can we offer those creators today when Bill C-11 does not address the problem of the private copying system? This is certainly the most important aspect of all. We could talk about exemptions for the likes of YouTube, which is increasingly becoming a competitive alternative to the way music has traditionally been distributed. I keep talking about music because it is an area I am familiar with and also because music was the first victim of this digitization and this new accessibility. In a few years we will have the technology to download feature films very quickly. Some may say that is already possible, but it is still not very common.

The thing about music is that the video for the song being copied takes much longer to download. The problem that music is currently experiencing will very quickly spread to the other cultural media we find on the Internet.

I will stop there for now.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate all in the House who have spoken to the bill so far. It has been quite informative. This is a very large, deep, complex bill. It has been bandied about now for the last 12 years, and as my hon. colleague pointed out, the number of emails and amount of input we are receiving on the bill have been quite substantial. In a 12-hour period I have received 2,200 emails regarding this issue. A lot of these emails were addressed to the ministers involved, the ministers of both heritage and industry, and copied to me as the heritage critic, but it certainly gives an idea of just how large this issue is. The implications are going to be felt for quite some time. I want to thank everyone who wrote to our party or to me personally about this matter and about the provisions in the bill.

I will not go back to the historical context, which goes back to Gutenberg, but I certainly would like to talk about the recent additions of this debate and how we have handled it going back to the WIPO treaties, which I will talk about in a little while.

The WIPO treaties were around 1996. As signatories to them, we have to come up with the right legislation to strike the balance that everyone keeps talking about. It is up to us in the opposition to make sure that balance is struck and to raise the bar in debate to make sure that the balance is there.

A lot of the debate is centred around digital locks. The supremacy of digital locks, as my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay mentioned earlier, has become a very contentious issue. I will also talk about the creation of works and the protection of the rights of artists, which we feel are of prime importance. As the heritage critic, I spoke to many artists about this issue and about how they want their works to be protected.

As we have all mentioned, in the case of copyright the balance we are seeking is a very thin line between infringement and the right to use a piece of copyrighted material for personal reasons only, and not for other reasons, either commercial or non-commercial. That is why we are here: to seek that balance and to raise the bar.

I would like to give some background now. I would also like to thank the Library of Parliament for providing us with information about what was Bill C-32 and now is Bill C-11. What I will read pertains to Bill C-32, but as the government pointed out, it returned the same bill to the House as it was before, and nothing has been changed.

Copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators for their literary and artistic works. Copyright attaches to an original work that is fixed in some material form. In other words, copyright protects the expression of an idea or intellectual creation, but it does not protect the idea itself. That is the balance that we need to achieve. It is that one person's perception of a certain idea, and the thought and work that go into that, must be protected. We know that for the vast majority of artists or authors, the remuneration for their work is not always quite up to what it would be in other industries.

The Copyright Act that we speak of and that we hope to change sets out the right to authorize or prohibit certain uses of a work and to receive compensation for its use. There are certain general themes that we have to go through, much of which is to achieve the balance between the right of creators to use their own material for the sake of a profit or to put forth an idea, and the right of others to use this idea and to further their own.

There are two types of rights. Artists who consider themselves to be creators have the economic right to derive financial reward and to make a living at what they do, and of course there is the moral right to protect the integrity of their original work.

That, too, we need to look at when we talk about ephemeral rights, digital locks or TPMs, international agreements and how we are going to do this, because there is another factor we have to consider: although we would consider this to be domestic legislation, it is really an international concept. This is why we create legislation around the treaties that we sign. It is one thing for an artist to have material and to use it for the sake of profit, but it is not only used domestically: it can be used outside our borders. As a result, we have to seek out ways to protect artists and the ways in which they want to make a living.

In the Copyright Act, part I, literary works are described as books, pamphlets, poems, dramatic works, film, videos, DVDs, plays, screenplays and scripts. Musical works are compositions that consist of both words and music or music only. Artists' work includes paintings, drawings, maps, photographs, sculptures and architectural works.

Part II of the Copyright Act contains provisions for what we call “neighbouring rights”, consisting of copyright protection for three categories of work that fall under “other subject-matter”. They include performers' performances, such as actors, musicians, dancers and singers who have copyrights in their performances; sound recordings, meaning copyright for makers of recordings such as records, cassettes and compact discs of the old days, and what is available on MP3 or clouds, which I believe is now being talked about as also protected by copyright; and communication signals. Broadcasters have copyrights in their broadcasting communication signals as well.

We get to the gist of what the Copyright Act was set up to do in the beginning, the genesis of which goes back hundreds of years, and that is to protect the integrity of works for economic reasons and to provide the original artists with a moral right to hang on to their pieces of work. Reproduction can take place in various forms, such as printed publications or sound recordings, and therein lies the protection purpose: the distribution of copies of a work through its public performance, its broadcasting or other communication to the public; its translation into other languages; and its adaptation, such as turning a novel into a screenplay. These are examples of what we hope to provide protection for.

At the same time, we need to look at other things that would be contained under part III of the Copyright Act. That is where we get into the concept known as fair dealing.

The United States of America normally calls it “fair usage”. In Canada and in the international context we use it primarily as “fair dealing”.

Here is what we consider: non-profit education users are considered in this bill, as well as non-profit libraries, museums, archives and those with perceptual disabilities, parody, and satire. All of these categories fall under fair dealing, which is the use of copyrighted material to further education of the masses, let us say through museums and archives, and of course its use for those with disabilities.

Earlier we talked about the situation in which long-distance education could be at risk. There are passages that could deeply affect people involved in long-distance education. It is something that we in the Liberal Party are very concerned about.

In the past, there have been deep discussions about rulings in the Supreme Court, in particular CCH Canadian Limited v. Law Society of Upper Canada. It was a judgment that looked at fair dealing in the context that it should be dealt with, which is to say the fair use of copyrighted material for the sake of the general public. What derived from that was the six-step process. The six-step process talked about six different measures that include having to look at the particular cases through a useful analytical framework to govern determinations of fairness in future cases. These measures include, number one, the purpose of the dealing or the purpose of doing this; number two, the character of the dealing; number three, the amount of the dealing; number four, alternatives to the dealing; number five, the nature of the particular work; and number six, the effect of the dealing on how the work would be dealt with in the marketplace.

There is another international concept that talks about copyright. It is in what is called the Berne Convention. That is a three-step process that is very important, because this three-step process from the Berne Convention is used in many international contexts.

Personally, I think it is a pretty good place to be, because it gives the public, legislators and the courts a measure by which they can look at what is perceived to be fair dealing. It is being used in many contexts. One context was in Canada, although it was expanded upon into the six-step process.

Essentially, the Berne Convention looks at those three measures. Those three measures talk about restricting them to personal cases, that they do not conflict with the normal expectation of the work, and that they do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.

Therefore, one of the situations that we should consider in doing this is that whether it is a three-step or six-step process, it will be a multi-step process by which the courts can adequately judge what is considered to be fair dealing in situations like the education exemption.

We can have a deep discussion in committee about how to deal with the broad exemptions brought forward, such as the non-profit education sector. I have received hundreds, if not thousands, of emails about this particular exemption. The Canadian Federation of Students believes that the exemption works, because it allows students to further their education as long as it is respectful to the particular author. However, we have received many emails and letters and have had verbal discussions and presentations from authors--people who make a living from writing textbooks, for example--who feel that this particular bill is not the balance that would help them in any way, shape or form.

That is why I believe that if we start talking about the exemptions, we should also talk about a responsible way to handle them. A multi-step process is a good way to consider. Many jurisdictions around the world that considered them to be broad have narrowed down these exemptions, because they have seen how this works. It is something we should discuss in committee, and I will get to that a bit later as well.

Part IV talks about civil and criminal remedies, awards for damages and loss of profits, injunctions and fines.

We have talked about statutory damages. In many cases some people feel they are too stringent, while others feel they are too light. There is a distinction between commercial usage and non-commercial usage or infringement. Commercial infringement requires a larger penalty because of the damage it may cause in the marketplace and how it may skew certain markets by what it does. Non-commercial infringement should be considered as well, and not so much at a higher dollar value, as with fines and remedies or even jail terms.

One of the issues that came to light back in 2005 or 2006 was that the big multinational recording companies were taking kids to court for infringing on their material. I remember making a statement at the time in committee that my 10-year-old had just downloaded a song from a website. It was file sharing. He did not know he was breaking the law. I did not know he was breaking the law at the time. Perhaps I am a technological laggard, but nonetheless it was basically the same as my son walking into HMV, grabbing a CD off the rack, putting it in his pocket and leaving. What is the difference? It is stealing music. It is stealing someone's material, and it should not be allowed.

In order to do this, we have to adapt to the new technologies that we have and the technology that we use to entertain, to create music, to receive that music and enjoy it. If I purchase a piece of music, I listen to it either on a CD, an MP3 player or my Blackberry. The discussion then becomes one on how a particular artist receives compensation for the work that he or she has done.

That is the discussion that was brought forward in the House in the last session regarding the levy. The opposition called it the iPod tax, which is incredibly disingenuous and an absolute insult to people who are making a living from music.

The funny thing was that a week prior to calling it the iPod tax, the government slapped a security fee on people who were checking in at airports. I could have easily called it a traveller's tax. The security fee is okay, but the iPod tax is something entirely different.

The hon. member for Peterborough talked about how it did not matter whether it was a fee or a levy, that a tax was a tax. However, time and time again we are seeing fees such as EI premiums going up in January. The terminology is never a “tax”. It is only a tax when the government deems it to be a tax.

Unfortunately, some of the debate gets off the rails and it become disingenuous. If we are going to committee with this, we should deeply consider a decent, mature, responsible debate about what is at the heart of this debate, which is to allow people to receive compensation for their work. We all know now that people are achieving music in different ways.

It used to be considered a levy when a charge was put on an actual CD. If people bought blank CDs or cassettes, they could record from the radio or other devices to get music for free. They still had to buy the blank CD or cassette, therefore the levy was applied to that. It was a way of remuneration for artists whose music was stolen by many people, some people who were unaware of it.

That is the type of debate we need to have in the House. I would implore the government, as well as the opposition, to have this debate in the House right now. Unfortunately what has happened is we have heard all this testimony, well over 140 witnesses and over 160 submissions, yet no changes have been made to the legislation.

The government says that it is sincere about going ahead, but going ahead with what? There is no indication whatsoever that any changes will be made other than to the “technical stuff”, which is really a technicality in and of itself.

If the government wants to continue this any further, we should consider a deep discussion about this and serious amendments, which is why I support the amendment put forward by my colleague, the member for Halifax West. It talks about a way of handling the legislation before it gets too focused and too confined. I have problems with the digital locks and the education exemption, which need to be looked at. I hope we can have that discussion.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was. That is a type of Liberal infighting, a Chrétienite versus a Martinite, with regard to the Manley history. However, it is clear that this has been used as an example to validate this legislation.

I was about to raise other third-party concerns that have been voiced in the debate that Canadians should hear. One of them is from Dr. Michael Geist, a renowned technology commentator. He has been quoted on Bill C-11 as saying that the foundation principle of the new bill remains that any time a digital lock is used, whether on books, movies, music, or electronic devices, the lock trumps virtually all other rights. He also states:

This means that both the existing fair dealing rights and Bill [C-11]'s new rights all cease to function effectively so long as the rights holder places a digital lock on the content or device.

We have a significant problem with the digital lock and we believe that having this type of testimony makes things more balanced as it is not just from the users. Later on we will hear some quotes from the artists as well.

I have statements from the cultural industries, which represent over 80 arts and cultural organizations across Quebec and nationwide. They argue that the bill would be toxic to the digital economy and warn that it would be a failure of the entire act itself. They suggest that the bill is actually toxic to artists.

The Writers Guild of Canada has a different take regarding its interest on the bill. It is a complex bill and issue. It states:

They are neither forward-looking nor in consumers or creators’ best interests. Digital locks, at their best, will simply freezes current revenue streams for creators.

There are other experts in the field, such as the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. This is what it has to say on digital locks:

Overall, these digital lock provisions are some of the most restrictive in the world.

To achieve a fair balance between users and copyright owners, the government needs to fix the digital lock provisions before this bill passes into law.

That is another counter to the one extreme case being used regarding Mr. Manley and his interests that are represented.

The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, SOCAN for short, states:

Without this balance, the creation of creative content will eventually decrease, as Canadian creators will be unable to make a living.

Presently, the average wage of a Canadian creator and artist is approximately $12,000 a year. That is not sufficient and the bill would take away some of their actual earnings forthright. This is a very important issue for artists because in this economy they are certainly suffering quite significantly. On top of that, they have a history in Canada of not being the most compensated in the workforce despite the fact that billions of dollars are generated from this industry, which I believe is around 7% of the GDP in overall impact.

Mr. Howard Knopf , a copyright lawyer, states:

The Digital Locks (TPM) measures continue to divide Canadians and to defy consensus. [They] are stronger than required by the WIPO treaties and stronger than necessary--

Why does the bill appear to be going overboard regarding digital locks?

What can be brought to bear on this issue is pressure from the United States. It was interesting to see the former minister of industry suggest that we should actually leak an advance copy of our bill to the United States. What is intriguing in itself is that instead of sharing it with Canadians, the people he represented as the minister, he would leak a document to the United States in advance to more or less get the Americans' opinion or blessing.

Later on the former minister's ministerial aid, the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, suggested that Canada be put on the United States' piracy watch list. This was also intriguing because I worked with the member for Edmonton—Leduc to improve Canada's international representation regarding piracy on a number of different visits since 2002 with the Canada-U.S. Parliamentary Association, which is a bipartisan group. We met with members of Congress and senators in the United States. We attended bilateral meetings. We went to different conferences across the United States to meet with Governors and different legislatures on a statewide and nationwide scale.

We often heard that the Hollywood movie industry was upset that Canadian films were allowed to be filmed in our studios or in our theatres. That was true. It was a grey area of the law and we had a problem with the filming and distribution of pirated movies. That was ratcheted up through the U.S. system and it gave us a black eye in many respects. To be fair, there was good evidence that in some specific places in Montreal and other theatres pirated versions emerged. They were being sold on the streets of New York and other places like that just as easily as in Canada but it became a problem.

I am aware of the good work done by the member for Edmonton—Leduc as a representative. We were able to work in a group and make legal changes here in Canada to remove that problem. A lot of effort went into reversing the reputation that Canada had at that particular time with the United States. Therefore, I have difficulty understanding why the second removed former minister would suggest that we would leak a copy to the United States and that the aid for the previous minister, the member from Muskoka, would want Canada to be on the U.S. piracy list.

The member for Timmins—James Bay talked about some of the countries that are on that list. They are not countries like Canada. When we are working hard together on international relationships and trading partner issues, why would we want to subject ourselves to that type of behaviour? It shows that the government will buckle under pressure, as it has many other times, regarding U.S.-Canada government relations, which has subsequently cost Canadians.

This digital lock issue could cost Canadians. That is why we believe it is important to have a digital strategy. I will get to the digital strategy because it does affect us.

The devices we are using today which have changed so dramatically will continue to change in the future as well. It is not only about the types of devices and how they are used but also about how the content is shuffled from one device to another and the many ways in which it is used.

I have a Sony PlayStation. When I download a song I can use it on my PS3 but having it on my Playbook is a different problem altogether. When I buy a particular song I believe I should have the right to use it on both those devices. Therefore, it also involves the mechanics of moving the content around.

We often talk about net neutrality. Canada needs to take a moment to define "net neutrality". It is not only important for consumers and their use of different entertainment and other available devices but also for business, especially small business. In the past we have heard testimony on net neutrality with regard to throttling posing bigger challenges to some of the smaller companies' ability to stream, their access to streaming, as well as the value of streaming. We believe that net neutrality is important for consumers as well as businesses in the country.

We want a national strategy on broadband. It is very important. Many times we have seen companies focus on specific areas of development, such as the large urban areas where the costs are more beneficial than out in the suburbs and rural areas. We believe that in Canada it should be similar to our highway systems and other physical infrastructure which connects Canadians from coast to coast to coast and that we have that ability to communicate.

That is why the CBC is so important and we believe in it so strongly. In Windsor, where we are dominated by U.S. content and material, it is nice to hear stories from Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, the Yukon or British Columbia. We get that through a national broadcast structure that is important for keeping our national identity.

We also talk about having a strategy on the spectrum auction. The government ended up in court over the last spectrum auction. It is an important asset. The type of spectrum we are getting is significant and would offer us a great advantage toward building this national infrastructure. However, we need to look at where the resources would come from. The last time the spectrum auction assets came in they were dumped into the central fund. We want to see a national strategy put in place that would take advantage of that and use it as an opportunity to put our broadband, and our society in general, in a better position. The U.S. is approximately two years ahead of us on this. It is an important point.

We do not know when the government will have the spectrum auction and the final terms. It is critical as it is affecting business decisions due to the uncertainty of how we would use and implement the different research, technology, communications, et cetera. We do not know exactly what will take place next and we need to catch up to the United States. Being that much behind the U.S. does not offer the same type of opportunities for investment because we are looking at that when making decisions.

It is similar to physical infrastructure. In my community we are finally working toward implementing a new border crossing. If the legislation passed in Michigan for that it would allow for better investment decisions to be made in Canada. Once it is developed and rolled out and we can see the physical asset, predictability can take place.

We also need to deal with the issue of e-commerce. We have heard testimony at the industry committee regarding Canada's e-commerce. It is a dog's breakfast. The other day we heard testimony that Canada is very much behind on e-commerce and that it is a disadvantage. We also heard testimony to the effect that we are not being treated the same as the United States and that Canadian companies are paying higher fees and charges. We should be looking at all of that.

These are the elements we have for looking at the new age because what we are dealing with today will change a lot.

Going back to Bill C-11, we are interested in getting it to committee to hear more testimony and we hope that the government will look at a couple of things.

I want to touch on the issues I believe are important.

There is a five year review of the bill. I have moved amendments on other bills, some of which have passed through the House of Commons, to have a three year review of a bill. Technology is changing so quickly and the artists are caught up in that. I have read a number of testimonies not only from people in commerce but also from artists stating that there will be a diminishment of Canadian content and remuneration going back to the artists themselves. We should not be leaving them in the lurch for five years. Perhaps we should be looking at a three year review.

One of the things that is very important about that review, and I am sure we will hear this debated, is whether or not the legislation can get out the door, get working and provide a proper analysis after five years. We need to research that. I think three years or some other provision for artists needs to be in there if we are to have the five year review because we are hearing enough testimony that there are problems.

I want to talk about long-distance education. For the most part, it pertains to rural areas. However, long-distance education is also taking place in cities because people are looking for specific degrees, specific information and specific areas of improvement. That is important because, as a competitive society, we have heard that Canadian education needs to be better and stronger.

I have a problem with the 30-day provision where the material would dissolve or we get to the old-fashioned book burning scenario where we have to destroy the product. I do not understand that. When we buy a product, we have that property.

I remember the days in university when we would try to sell our books because when the next edition came out it was a little bit different. That is an important point to make because I think there is some overcalculation here. Each year the book would change a little but we were made to buy the newest edition. I remember the days when only a bit of the content was different but we were forced to buy the new textbook because of the change.

I do not understand why we would want people to lose the education and training materails that they would pay for from their own pocket because of a 30-day cycle. It is very important. I know many professionals, doctors and other individuals who regularly refer to the material from which they learned.

I do that for my own research in the House of Commons. If we research a topic or have the research done by the Library of Parliament, I often review the material a number of times at different points in time. I do not know what advantage there would be for individuals to take college courses via long distance if they could not review the materials whenever and however they wanted.

We can research that some more to determine the exact veracity of that, how the definitions will be defined and who will control that. It will be interesting to hear testimony at the committee hearings.

I am a little bit cautious on that, because I have seen in the past, whether it be with fibromyalgia or other types of disabilities, where people have been denied certain support systems because the disability was not as so-called obvious as others, or there was no burden of proof, or there would be an extra expense to get doctor's notes or other types of learning support documents at different times. I am a little bit concerned about that.

I will wrap up on the important issue of royalty rights. The royalty rights are a stabilizing fund for our artists. There have been a lot of changes over the years to the types of materials that we have had and the way they get remuneration. It is a new world, a new age, which is why we have gone through several machinations of this bill. It has always created a problem because we are trying to find the right balance at the end of the day between the consumers and ensuring that our artists are compensated. It is tough because we all want to have stuff but having it for free is just not fair for the people who have actually spent their time, energy and money creating it.

We want to have balance in there and stripping away the fund is something that I cannot accept. We need to have a solution for it. As I said, the annual average income for an artist in Canada is around $12,000. That is not sufficient to live on in this day and age in our communities. We need to ensure we are going to compete.

It is very common to have great relations with the United States. I go over to the United States all the time. However, we are fiercely proud because we have Canadian content and we have that Canadian identity that is not only recognized by the people in the United States but is celebrated by them, too. We push back into their content with the great artists, the men and women we have in Canada.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-11. Copyright is a very important issue and New Democrats have been talking about having a digital strategy in general, but I will get into the specifics.

It is interesting that the Conservatives referred to a former Liberal member, John Manley, as the benchmark of where they should be. I have nothing against John Manley; I served in the House of Commons with him. He was up front in terms of discussing issues. When we think of the advice the Conservatives are following, it is kind of interesting because John Manley was the person who wanted to deregulate our banks and make them like the U.S. banks. The Conservative government very often talks about how we have a strong financial system right now because we did not do what the U.S. did.

I was in the House of Commons when the Conservatives joined with John Manley to try to change our banks to be more like the U.S. banks. We had those debates in the House of Commons. I would give credit to the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc members were very staunchly against that, as were the New Democrats. We were able to defeat that. Judy Wasylycia-Leis was a key NDP member opposing that proposal. We made counter proposals to John Manley that were seen as hostile, left wing, socialist and crazy. Finally, after many months of pressure, we were able to defeat the movement by John Manley and the Conservatives at that time to deregulate our banks and make them more like the American banks. That was the argument at that point in time.

It is very important—

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, here we have another bill to modernize copyright, the same bill that was introduced by the industry minister on June 2, 2010. The short title of the bill is the Copyright Modernization Act, but I do not think this is the right title; it should have been called the digital lock act or the padlock act, based on what happened in the past.

It was about time that the government introduced, in legislation, the principles contained in the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, which Canada signed on December 22, 1997. Unfortunately, the Conservative government used this as an opportunity to include several provisions that undermine the foundation of copyright. The Copyright Act is the legal foundation that ensures that creations can be reproduced, presented and communicated to the public while guaranteeing proper compensation for their creators.

The people most overlooked by this digital lock legislation—which is being passed off as copyright legislation—are the creators. To weaken copyright by creating a series of exceptions that allow people to use creations without authorization or any financial compensation is tantamount to preventing a group of workers from earning a living from their trade. I will talk later about the financial repercussions of this bill's provisions on creators.

This bill also does away with collectives, a tool that artists created for themselves to facilitate access to their creations in full compliance with their rights. It also jeopardizes cultural industries by cutting off their supply of creations and by preventing them from developing markets that meet the needs of consumers while protecting their investments.

The bill contains over 40 new exceptions, most of which mean no compensation for creators, and this flies in the face of a fundamental principle, specifically, that as soon as a creation is used, there is no reason the creator should not be paid. It is simple; it is clear. That is the basis of copyright.

A royalty is not a tax. Since the start of this debate, the Conservatives have been trying to make the link between royalties and taxes. They are not the same thing. Every industry, to varying degrees, benefits from government assistance through investment, research and development tax credits, and also direct subsidies. Just look at the aerospace, agri-food and information technology industries, to name a few.

Cultural industries are no different. All these industries fiercely protect their intellectual property under the Patent Act, the Industrial Design Act, the Copyright Act or any other intellectual property protection legislation.

What ends up happening? Everyone, as taxpayers or consumers, pays for using the creations of these companies, whether we are talking about software, drugs or iPods, since royalties are included in the price of the product or the price of the software licence, for example.

What is wrong with paying royalties for using music, images, videos and books? The creators of that material are entitled to compensation, just as teachers are entitled to their salary and the mason who repairs the school wall is entitled to his pay.

It is not a tax; it is a royalty we pay to the copyright holder, as we do for many creators in a number of different fields. With all the new technology at our disposal, we have to stop thinking of ourselves simply as consumers of the creation of others. If we write a short story or a novel, compose a song or invent something, we would obviously like to receive fair payment for our creation, our work.

Creators are inventors. They have patents on their creations and are entitled to their fair share. That is why we have to “think different”, in the words of the famous Apple slogan. Let us hope this slogan inspires us to follow through.

I will quickly go over the provisions of this bill and the various exceptions discussed—there are about 40—which will deprive creators, artists, composers, musicians and photographers of the royalties to which they are entitled. I should also mention writers.

What is the significance of broadening the concept of fair dealing for the purpose of education, parody or satire? This will obviously go before the courts. They will have to define the scope of this section. In the meantime, uncertainty will persist and users, especially teachers, as well as copyright holders, will wonder about permitted uses. I already said in another presentation that, with the arrival of the majority Conservative government, with the building of new prisons, these Conservatives will invent new crimes to fill their prisons. There are several new crimes in this bill. We did not know they were crimes, but now we have punishments. Things we do on a daily basis will be criminalized and punished.

This provision affects monies collected by the Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction—Copibec; the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada; and the Quebec Collective Society for the Rights of Makers of Sound and Video Recordings. All these organizations appeared before the committee, but the government did not use anything from their presentations. Instead, the government decided to borrow from provisions implemented in the United States. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, or SOCAN, and the Société québécoise des auteurs dramatiques are also opposed to this provision, as are the Producers' Audiovisual Collective of Canada, Audio Ciné Films and Criterion Pictures when it comes to the reproduction of literary, artistic, dramatic, musical and audiovisual works, the public performance of musical and audiovisual works, and the presentation of dramatic works in educational institutions.

What about lost royalties in Quebec because of the broadening of the concept of fair dealing? In fact, what is fair dealing? The law does not specify what is meant by fair dealing. This will result in the loss of $11 million annually for creators and copyright owners. Every year schools, CEGEPs and universities make 175 million copies of excerpts from protected works.

Let us remember that fair dealing is a loose concept that will put an end to the right to grant or deny authorization to use a work and the right to receive remuneration for the use of a work, thus affecting the rights of 23,000 authors and 1,000 publishers in Quebec.

The Conservatives are opening Pandora's box. The education sector is very large. It does not make any sense. If people can photocopy books for educational purposes without providing compensation, no one will want to write books. Furthermore, since the term “education” is not defined in the bill, this new exception could apply to any sort of educational activity and not just to activities carried out within the school system.

Another exception is reproduction for private purposes. An individual may reproduce a legally obtained work on any medium or device and provide access for private purposes. The government could have chosen, as the artists and performers have requested, to expand the existing compensation system for transferring a sound recording to blank media such as cassettes, but it chose to make it free.

We know that, right now, when we make a copy of a work on a disk, royalties are paid to the creators—29¢ on each CD, for example. Obviously, with the growth in virtual storage methods, the revenue from royalties has disappeared like snow on a warm day, dropping from $27 million to $8 million in a few years. There is nothing in this bill to compensate for these losses.

Creators are dismayed to see, in a copyright bill, that the only thing the government is concerned about recognizing is not copyright, but digital locks. The number of blank cassettes and DVDs sold is declining steadily, the amounts redistributed to creators are falling, and creators’ associations are hoping that a similar royalty will be applied to the purchase of devices like personal stereos, as was said in committee, based on the size of the hard drive or flash memory. The existing private copying regime does not affect those devices, however; only the recording media. And fewer and fewer media are being used.

The use of photographs is another exception that has been criticized by photographic artists. An individual may use for private or non-commercial purposes, or permit the use of for those purposes, a photograph or portrait that was commissioned by the individual for personal purposes and made for valuable consideration, unless the individual and the owner of the copyright in the photograph or portrait have agreed otherwise.

On the question of later viewing, an individual may reproduce a work that is being broadcast for the purpose of listening to or viewing it later. Only one copy may be made and the individual may not keep the recording any longer than is reasonably necessary in order to listen to or view it later.

To summarize, I make a copy of a recorded program that I have paid for in order to watch it later, but I would not be entitled to retain the copy any longer than is necessary for the later use. How can that be verified, and who is going to do it? Who is going to make sure that I do not keep the copy indefinitely or I do not lend it to my neighbours? If I lend it to my neighbour, is that going to be a crime liable to a $5,000 fine? If I look at the criminal provisions in the bill, that might well be the case. I would become a criminal if I lent a program to one of my friends. I think the penalty applied to this type of conduct is excessive in the circumstances.

With respect to backup copies, the owner of a work will be able to make backup copies and use them to replace an original work rendered unusable. Devices that can no longer be used will therefore have to be repurchased, but not the content.

There are some odd things in this bill. It is difficult to make head or tail of it.

With respect to communication of a work by telecommunication, educational institutions will be able to communicate lessons containing copyrighted works to students by telecommunication. The institution will have to take measures "that can reasonably be expected" to limit the distribution of the work and will also have to destroy the copy within 30 days of the date on which the students receive their final evaluations. However, no penalties are proposed if the institution fails to take the necessary measures.

This provision suffers from a somewhat split personality. It is sending the message that these works must be destroyed but there is no arrangement for verifying this. In any event, if it is not destroyed, that is no penalty. I wonder what we are talking about. I would really like to know what firm of lobbyists went to see the Conservative government and asked it to include this kind of provision in the bill. I do not understand.

For extension of the photocopy licence, institutions that have been issued a photocopying licence by Copibec will be able to make digital copies and communicate them to students by telecommunication. The photocopying licence’s provisions will apply to that type of use, and the royalties will be calculated the same way. How will fair dealing for educational purposes be reconciled with this exception?

Institutions in possession of a photocopying or reprographic licence will also be able to make digital reproductions and transmit them by telecommunication. Paid-for photocopies could thus be transmitted by way of digital reproduction, however they get somewhat lost in the maze that is the digital world.

Teaching institutions will be able to access works available on the Internet for educational purposes. We all do this: we use Google, we consult Wikipedia, etc. This exception would not apply to works protected by a technical measure—a lock—or to works displaying not simply the copyright symbol but also a clearly visible warning prohibiting their use. Thus, the principle whereby works are protected as soon as they exist in some medium, without the need for any other formality is reversed, and rights holders who do not wish to provide free access to their works would be forced to lock them or attach a warning. This fails to take into account the millions of works already available free of charge for educational purposes on the Internet under the current licensing system.

As far as reproduction for visual presentations and examinations is concerned, the current legislation permits the reproduction of a work by hand and its presentation by means of an overhead projector. The bill will authorize the reproduction and visual presentation of a work on all platforms irrespective of the type of technology, be it a USB key, an interactive whiteboard, or a computer screen. This exception will not apply if the work is available on the Canadian market in the medium in question. The legislator has removed the possibility of obtaining a licence from a collective society in order to stop the use of this exception. This amounts to an immediate loss of half a million dollars to the copyright holders represented by Copibec.

This is another example of a provision in this bill that does not assist authors but rather deprives them of up to $500,000 in income.

We spoke earlier of provisions in the bill that apply to libraries, museums and archives. Let us see how this applies in the case of loans to institutions. Libraries, museums and archives designated as such under the act will henceforth be able to transmit digitally formatted articles from periodicals to users for private study and research purposes. These institutions must take steps to prevent the user from printing more than one copy of the article or from transmitting it to a third party.

Librarians who forward articles to users must take steps to ensure that these users are not able to transmit this information to a third party. As I cast my mind to my municipal library in St-Hippolyte, I wonder who will have to handle the directives this legislation entails. How will that person proceed?

In the culture sector, the general feeling about Bill C-11 is that, in its current form, it undermines the principles at the heart of copyright, principles that have historically provided an environment that is favourable to creators, producers, distributors and consumers of cultural property. This bill will compromise Canada's ability to compete in a global digital economy and will undermine the economic future of those creating Canadian content. Artists indicate that numerous clauses in Bill C-11 demonstrate a lack of understanding of the creative industry's structures within an evolving technological environment. Parliamentarians have a responsibility to amend the bill and keep the positive measures. In order to develop an innovative knowledge economy, Canada needs to staunchly defend intellectual property.

If Bill C-11 is passed in its current form, there will be serious financial consequences for artists, for Canada's cultural industries, with losses estimated at $126 million per year.

We should be removing all of the clauses that go against the current law and eliminate the revenue currently being generated. This includes the provisions that legalize certain kinds of copying, without providing any compensation. We must allow the educational use of copyrighted material without compensation.

It seems as though all of the attempts at copyright reform in Canada have had very little to do with creating a system that balances the rights of creators with those of the general public. That is what the NDP wants. We do not want to further criminalize the actions of individuals. We want this bill to clearly set out copyright guidelines for creators, to help them enter into a growing, evolving universe.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

That is shameful. It is hard to imagine that could happen. Surely, the Conservatives would have more respect for Parliament and for the House of Commons than to offer it to a foreign government before tabling it here and making it available for members and for Canadians to examine.

Worse than that, the cables revealed that the Conservatives actually asked the United States to place Canada on the United States trade representatives' piracy watch list. They wanted to scare Canadians into supporting this copyright bill. Talk about a regressive, recidivist, bizarre way to approach this. Ten days after the Conservatives made the request, the U.S. was only too happy to oblige them. Naturally. It is no surprise that they went along fully.

The irony of all this, of course, is that the U.S. is now loosening up its own provisions on digital locks. During the last review of the American circumvention rules, it significantly loosened them up. While it is now legal in the U.S. to circumvent a protection measure to create a mash-up for YouTube, in Canada it is going to be illegal, thanks to the government. Can anyone Imagine that? The Conservatives talk about this being balanced, fair and a modern copyright law. This is regressive.

While the Bush White House had a direct line into the Prime Minister's Office, the opinions and advice of Canadian stakeholders, Canadian citizens and Canadian experts fell on deaf ears.

During the 40th Parliament, a special legislative committee on the copyright bill heard from 142 witnesses and it received 167 submissions. That is a lot of input. As members of Parliament, we also received comments from thousands of Canadians. In fact, yesterday alone, my office received nearly 3,000 emails on this one subject. Canadians are concerned about this and have made lots of comments but the government is not listening.

Much of what the committee heard last winter and spring made a lot of sense. Instead of listening, instead of saying that they heard what the witnesses were saying and that they would make some changes, the Conservatives chose to table the exact same bill with the identical wording. There was not a comma change, a period change or a letter moved in the bill except for perhaps the numbering now because it is a new Parliament.

The heritage minister has said publicly that he will not accept any changes. Today, he seems to be singing a bit of a different tune but we will have to wait and see if that is true. His handlers in the Prime Minister's Office have let it be known that they do not even want full hearings on the bill. They do not want members of the House, many of whom are new to the House, to hear from different witnesses and to have the opportunity for a full debate on the bill. I hope not, but perhaps we can expect to see today what we have seen in the last few weeks from the government on every major bill so far, and that is it using closure to move it quickly forward and to ram it through the House. Because of this heavy-handed approach, the undue American influence and the government's unyielding and misguided stance on digital locks, the Liberals have no choice, in our view, but to vote against Bill C-11.

A central concern heard at previous committee hearings was how the expansion of fair dealing into areas such as education would affect artists and creators. Many authors explained repeatedly that the changes in the bill would significantly affect their business models, and that is an important concern for us. However, in Bill C-11 we see no attempt to improve the definitions of fair dealing or provide any kind of certainty to these authors.

Finally, the Liberal Party continues to believe that artists and creators deserve transitional funding in order to cope with the effects this bill would have on their revenue streams. For instance, by no longer allowing creators to charge for ephemeral recordings, artists will lose a revenue stream of roughly $8 million a year. We believe the government should provide some transitional assistance to help artists adjust to the new reality. That is why we proposed in the last election a fund to compensate artists.

Many members will be aware that in the past there was a levy on blank cassettes and CDs. At one point that levy was producing revenue of $27.7 million for Canadian artists, and that was a very important revenue stream for them. Unfortunately, over time things change and people are not using as many cassettes or that many blank CDs and, therefore, the revenue has gone down to about $8.8 million a year. That is a dramatic drop for the artists who were relying on that. It seems to me that the government ought to be recognizing this and trying to find a way to respond to it, but it does not seem interested. It does not seem to have any concern for the impact this is having and we should be concerned.

As a result of the many problems in the bill, particularly the fact that the government has demonstrated that, after hearing 142 witnesses, reading 163 submissions and hearing from thousands of Canadians commenting on it online, in emails and so forth, it does not feel the need for any changes whatsoever, I want to bring forward the following amendment. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after the word “That” and submitting the following:

“this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Copyright Act, because it fails to:

(a) uphold the rights of consumers to choose how to enjoy the content that they purchase through overly-restrictive digital lock provisions;

(b) include a clear and strict test for “fair dealing” for education purposes; and

(c) provide any transitional funding to help artists adapt to the loss of revenue streams that the Bill would cause.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased and honoured to stand today in this debate on Bill C-11 on behalf of the Liberal Party and on behalf of my constituents in the great riding of Halifax West.

It is disappointing that the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages do not appear to be interested in listening to this debate.

What we see in Bill C-11 is, as Yogi Berra said, “This is like déjà vu all over again”. In fact, this reminds of another Yogi Berraism. When he was asked about going to Coney Island, he said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded”.

This is the same kind of logic that we find in the government's approach to this bill. The new copyright bill, Bill C-11, is a carbon copy of the old copyright bill, Bill C-32. It has the same ideologically driven principles and it has the same flaws and omissions. It has the same, as my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay was just saying, American-influenced digital lock provisions.

However, the Liberals recognize that there is a need to modernize the Copyright Act. We also recognize the need to protect artists, creators, educators and consumers. We recognize the need for balanced legislation. We think it is important to have copyright rules that are fair and balanced.

Instead of that, today we have before us a recycled bill that includes some of the most restrictive digital lock provisions in the world. This is, in fact, an approach that Michael Geist, who is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, correctly points out is all about satisfying U.S. interests.

I was pleased to see this morning that he actually wrote on his blog today. He states:

The Liberal position is consistent with Bill C-60, their 2005 copyright bill that linked the digital lock rules to actual copyright infringement and did not establish a ban on the tools that can be used to circumvent digital locks.

Clearly, this renowned expert on copyright, the Internet and e-commerce is saying that our approach is one that makes sense and is consistent.

In view of those concerns, the Liberal Party will not support Bill C-11. The digital lock provisions in this bill are far too strict and they override virtually every other right that is in the legislation.

These provisions, for example, make it illegal for a mom to move a movie from her DVD to her iPad or Playbook so that her kids can watch it during a long car trip.

These provisions will make it illegal for Canadians to transfer a movie from a DVD to their iPad or PlayBook so that their kids can watch it during a long car trip, because bypassing the DVD protection measures would lead to a $5,000 lawsuit. That is appalling.

I will take the case of a visually impaired student. If that student needs to shift the format of a digital text so he can read it but finds protection measures on the source material, he would not be able to read it unless he breaks the law. How can that possibly be considered a fair and balanced approach? In fact, it is the opposite of fair and balanced.

I know many of my colleagues across the way do not believe their tough on crime agenda means going after busy moms or students with disabilities, but they should actually consider the implications of this bill because that is exactly what they are doing with this bill.

This morning, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages actually claimed that he and the government have the support of the Council of Ministers of Education Canada for the this bill. However, this is what the council actually said, “Much like many other education groups, provincial ministers agree that the digital lock provisions are too restrictive”.

The minister seems to interpret that as support, which is a strange interpretation in my view.

The Liberals are strongly opposed to a government that seeks to make it illegal for ordinary Canadians to exercise their rights to view material they have legally purchased in the format they choose. This is about whether people can change something. If people have a CD they have paid for and they want to transfer the music from their CD to their iPod or, perhaps, to their Blackberry, they want the ability to do that. What the government is saying is that they can do that. It wants Canadians to believe they can do that. However, the government is also saying that it is giving us that right but that it is taking it away because it has put a digital lock on it and we cannot. It is a contradictory position.

Other countries have managed to fulfill their international WIPO treaty obligations without having to implement such strict digital lock provisions. So why would Canada go well beyond what is expected of it? The answer is clear. This bill was drafted for the purpose of meeting the demands of the United States instead of meeting the needs of Canadians and standing up for their interests.

Diplomatic cables, recently released through WikiLeaks, have revealed that much of the bill was drafted specifically to meet American expectations in terms of the digital lock provisions. I find that quite shocking and disturbing. It is not about what is in the interests of Canadians but what is in the interest of some U.S. interests. The Conservatives even offered to provide the United States government with an advance copy of the bill before the Parliament of Canada was allowed to read it.