Evidence of meeting #3 for Bill C-11 (41st Parliament, 1st Session) in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was copyright.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
One of the assumptions of what you're suggesting for a change is that for damages to have occurred the individual who is using the photograph maybe for another purpose, a broader purpose than was anticipated. In the example you gave for Mr. McColeman, the assumption was that they would have used the same photographer, otherwise there wouldn't be damages.
How do you reconcile some of the assumptions that would have to be made to draw that link for damage?
6:05 p.m.
Chair of the Copyright Committee, Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators
As I said, it's going to have to be on a case-by-case basis. I think there's no broad way to define in the law exactly where the problem is. I gave one example of one photograph from a lawyer that goes to his company, and that's a problem. I gave another example where somebody prints 100 copies of a landscape and suddenly the whole village has it and I cannot sell a similar picture of that landscape to anybody.
I cannot ask a law to be perfect. I don't think any law is perfect. That's why laws are so long and have so many exceptions, and we're trying and trying again. I think photographers are not there to sue their clients. They want to have a good relationship with them, and most of the time they will lean toward the client. If the client does something that's iffy, he's going to let it pass. I don't think you will see 1,000 court cases against our clients.
6:05 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
We're way over time, Monsieur Cornellier. Thank you.
We'll move on now to Monsieur Dionne Labelle pour cinq minutes.
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Dionne Labelle NDP Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Workman, I listened to the amendments you proposed, and I have a question for you. I get the sense that this bill will make the community of people with visual perception problems feel even more excluded. They will feel even more disconnected from this technological and digital world we are living in. Am I wrong? Is that what you were saying?
6:05 p.m.
National Director, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians
I'm suggesting we now have an opportunity to amend copyright, which we don't get all that often. At least, it hasn't been passed all that often.
What I'm suggesting is that we can fix some of the problems in the current Copyright Act, and we can enhance the things we're introducing. Sending the formats outside of Canada is something being introduced in Bill C-11, and I want to anticipate some of the limitations and try to get them out of the way. So I'm not sure if it's a sense of being more excluded, as much as it's a sense of having an opportunity to increase our inclusion into Canadian society and not taking that opportunity.
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Dionne Labelle NDP Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you.
I was very interested in the amendment put forward by he CPC. That is the kind of amendment that is completely admissible and should be quite appealing to our Conservative friends. The amendment concerns the whole notion of the market. The bill does not deal with that anywhere, and you introduced it quite nicely. As ardent defenders of the market economy, the Conservatives will be very pleased with the element you are introducing, and I think your amendment will have its intended effect. I commend you.
6:10 p.m.
Chair of the Copyright Committee, Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators
Thank you.
We certainly hope so.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC
Mr. Workman, my question has to do with the provisions on lock circumvention to address the specific situation of your members. Would you agree with me that the amendments necessary to give your community members the right to access the adapted formats they need are practically scraps? And yet, the bill could make it mandatory to provide the codes to circumvent the locks in order to make works accessible when specific circumstances warrant, such as those of your members. Would you prefer to see obligations of that nature in the bill, rather than an amendment that simply serves up scraps?
6:10 p.m.
National Director, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians
I would agree with that. If there were something that could be included in the law to say that locks need to be removed by the publisher or the copyright holder in certain situations where the purpose is for producing an alternative format, then that would absolutely be a better solution. I'm not sure if that's within the scope of the Copyright Act. If it is, then absolutely, that's what we would like to see. The alternative would be to try to make these tools as available as possible, and one way to do that would be to make it so that they would not be illegal in 99% of the cases where they might be used.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC
Thank you.
That is definitely an aspect we are interested in. Prior to your presentation, we heard people say that in Switzerland, for instance, regulations aimed at protecting digital works were much less stringent, but that they also made it possible to collect more royalties on various works.
We should not try to turn this bill into a cure-all. We have to recognize the dead ends it leads to and know when not to legislate out of necessity, so we can round out the legislation more effectively with regulations that fall outside the code.
So would you be more in favour of a change, an addition to the legislation?
6:10 p.m.
National Director, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians
I would agree with that, if that's possible.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Thank you.
I just wanted to go a little further on that than Mr. Workman did. As Mr. Nantel said, Switzerland has gone down the road of tariffs or taxes on the devices that people would be using where copyrighted material could be used. What impact would it have on people who require devices to pay a tariff? Who knows how much that tariff could be? We're going to go down the road of finding out what the tariff in Switzerland would be, but at what point does that become a difficulty for those who need the devices?
My second question is, would you be comfortable...? As you know, in this bill, through an order in council a TPM can be removed from certain items. Is it not an option, for instance, that through an order in council a TPM be removed from those programs used for people with visual disabilities?
I have those two questions for you.
6:10 p.m.
National Director, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians
A large number of blind people do live in poverty. Any additional money that is required to accomplish an everyday task is going to be an issue. I think there are potential ways of getting around that through what they call assistive devices programs—programs funded by the government that can assist with the purchase of these essential tools. But absolutely, any time you add a cost to a group whose income is already lower than the average, it's going to be an issue.
With respect to using orders in council, I think that's an option. I think it might put a bit of the burden on the users to say we need them to do this, rather than from the outset saying that this is how we're going to shape it so that the burden isn't on the consumer.
I could see it working, but I'm a little reluctant because it does seem to place a bit more of a burden on the consumer.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Not to push too far on this, but it strikes me that if we consider the route of the Swiss model, we're then creating another level where people requiring certain things then have to approach the government for assistance through assistive devices, which would probably mean through the provincial government. I worry that by taxing these devices to the extreme in order to do what we can accomplish through regulation, we'd really be causing a great deal of difficulty for people.
I'll just leave that comment about adding such an enormous tax. One of the previous witnesses here said that he'd heard the Swiss tax everything but toasters. One of the first people I had the pleasure of working with at Rogers cable when I was a student was a gentleman who was visually impaired. What he was able to accomplish in 1995 on a computer at Rogers back then was truly amazing. He showed me some of the things he used at that time to help him overcome disability in his day-to-day life. I can only imagine that we've gone a lot further than that.
I just worry about taxing at every single opportunity to make life a touch easier for people, but thank you very much for your testimony.
I'll move on to Mr. Boyle and Mr. Cornellier.
You've outlined some of the difficulties that we have—that any government has had—in trying to create this type of legislation. For every one thing that we do, there are 10 other reasons why it might be a difficulty or a challenge to do it.
Mr. McColeman was mentioning to me a company in his riding that takes pictures and makes them look better, or makes them look like paintings—digitally. Who would own that? The person who fixes the digital? We always open up a lot of different things when we make one change.
You've highlighted some of the dilemmas, but on balance with what you see before you, is this a step forward for you?
I'm not predetermining what this committee will come up with in terms of amendments, but are you happy with what we've put forward, even in the absence of any further amendments?
6:15 p.m.
Chair of the Copyright Committee, Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators
We are happy with a lot. Basically, we're going to open a bottle of champagne in a few months.
I mean, we just want to clarify a place where we know there will be some difficulty. It may seem like there are a lot of words, but we're trying to do it the simplest way possible in order to give leeway to both parties to do their thing. We want those people to use their photographs. We have no problem with that. What we're saying here is that it's not a red light. We don't want to stop people from doing things. It's just a yellow light. We're saying, “Do that, but don't go too far, guys. Don't kill us.”
That's all we're trying to say.
6:15 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Thank you, Monsieur Cornellier. I'm sorry to have to stop you, but we do have to stick to the time frame here.
Up next is Mr. Benskin, for five minutes.
6:15 p.m.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Workman, I want to clarify some of the issues you're bringing forward. From my perspective, I'm seeing the issue, as we talked about it before, as being basically a language issue and an accessibility issue, as opposed to a technology issue. Like every other patent that goes into any other software or hardware device, a patent is by extension a copyright, of which the patent holder is paid, which goes into the price. So it's not an extra tax or anything else that's being put into that patent for that machine.
As far as accessibility is concerned, perhaps you could reiterate whether the accessibility you're looking for is access to the material itself as opposed to issues with technology.
6:20 p.m.
National Director, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians
Ultimately what we're looking for is access to the content, and that could be done in a few different ways. I suspect where it gets a little technological, though, is that DRM can often make it so that it's not possible to use some of the screen readers or some of the software that we would normally use to access text in, say, a Microsoft Word document, and that you can't use to read a book from Amazon's Kindle store, for example.
I think what needs to happen is that Amazon has to build in some accessibility. If they want to maintain that DRM, then they can build in a screen reader that will allow you to access it that way. Ultimately it is an issue of accessing the material.
6:20 p.m.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
So it's the software that you're looking to be possibly more cross-platform workable so that you can read documents, as well as e-books and even PDF documents, audibly?
6:20 p.m.
National Director, Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians
Yes, I think so. I mean, I think DRM causes some issues. There are different ways that could be worked around. Amazon could remove the DRM and provide the DRM file to an organization that then produces Braille and audio in an accessible e-text, or they could build in accessibility the way Apple has, for example. In the iBookstore, you can turn on voice-over on your iPad, and purchase books in the iBookstore and read them.