Evidence of meeting #5 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.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
My comments would indicate.... I'll leave that for another questioner to maybe get the response to that—
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
—but it's basically that interdependence, and striking the right balance in change.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
We're almost to six minutes, unfortunately, so I'll have to ask you if you can try to get those comments in at another time. If you can do it in ten seconds, I can give you ten seconds.
4:15 p.m.
Secretary, Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Music Association
That's okay.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Fair enough. Thank you.
We're now moving on to Mr. Regan for five minutes—and five minutes only.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Gee, that's a short time, Mr. Chairman. There are too many questions for five minutes.
Mr. Lawford, one of the concerns I've heard about technological protection measures—digital locks—is that if a mother is driving her kids to grandma's house, let's say, and if she format-shifts, if she takes a DVD and puts it on her iPod so the kids can watch it in the vehicle on the way there, she's in trouble and could be sued.
Is it your view that this kind of thing, these rules against circumvention, would lead to more lawsuits?
4:15 p.m.
Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative
It might lead to more lawsuits, but more importantly, I think you'll never be able, as that mother, to take your DVD and transform it into another format for the car or whatever, because no one would ever create software that would allow you to do that. She probably, unless she's a computer engineer, would be incapable of doing it herself. That's more our concern, although there is a possibility of lawsuits if you did it yourself and it became known.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
In the last couple of days here in this committee, my Conservative friends across the way have been trying to suggest that there's a link between digital locks and levies, such that if you allow the circumvention of digital locks, you're going to have levies. What's your reaction to this attempt at making a connection between those two things?
4:15 p.m.
Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative
I see the conceptual link, if you will, but we just don't believe there's going to be the level of private use that will cut into sales such that a levy would be necessary. What we're talking about here is people being able to make a backup so that if their kid steps on their DVD they still can play it and not have to buy a new one—
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
So you don't feel that levies are going to inevitably follow if you're allowed to circumvent...?
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you.
What do you think of the comments we've seen from Conservative MPs who are telling their constituents not to worry about being sued for breaking digital locks, no one's going to come after you? Do you take comfort from that?
4:20 p.m.
Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative
I think there's a fairly big effort in this bill, as I said, to try to steer—for the most part—non-commercial infringement towards the capped amount. That will generally dissuade lawsuits for unreasonable amounts against non-commercial uses. There's still, as we said—because of the amendment we put before you—a concern that it could be threatened and people might still pay up.
But generally the bill is trying to get there. There are just some parts where we're concerned that at the first stage of the litigation a demand letter could be sent, and that was what our amendment was aimed at.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Would I be right to understand that you don't make a distinction when it comes to digital locks about whether it's on a CD, a DVD, software, a gaming console, or any of those, and that you'd be the same in relation to all those things?
4:20 p.m.
Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative
Yes, we're content-neutral, if you will.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Okay.
You talked about how suing should not be a business model. Let me get to one of the things we heard from somebody else here about notice and notice, or notice and takedown, which has been suggested, right? One of the difficulties here is that if you're saying that you're going to rely upon someone suing the person who has put up the item rather than having it taken down by the ISP—which I think is problematic anyway—isn't that encouraging suing as a response?
Isn't it encouraging suing if you say that the way you have to enforce this is by suing the individual who has put up the content, and then working out whether or not there's an infringement, rather than having some other mechanism? CIMA has talked about a made-in-Canada solution to this, and I see a problem with that. The problem with just saying that the ISP has to take it down is that then the ISP perhaps is the arbiter determining whether or not this has been an infringement, and there's not some third body, right?
But is there some other alternative to this that is reasonable for both?
4:20 p.m.
Counsel, Canadian Consumer Initiative
I think the bill strikes the right balance. It says “notice”. For notice, most people who come into their house and ask their kids what they were downloading, that's going to stop it right there.... The second notice, even more effective, and the third, maybe there's a hardcore group...well, that's when maybe you have to break out your lawsuit. Again, if it's non-commercial, if no one's benefiting from it, then we think the $5,000 limit is enough to get most people's attention.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Mr. Johnston, there's a difference, of course, between an allegation and a proven breach, and that's the problem here, as I see it. How do you see resolving that?
4:20 p.m.
President, Canadian Independent Music Association
When it comes to “notice-and-notice”, I think by and large it would probably work in many cases. People keep bringing YouTube into the argument. YouTube would absolutely respect a notice-and-notice. They have proven they would do it. They are good business partners. We're not talking about the YouTubes of the world.
Notice-and-notice generally could work in many cases. The problem is—and again I'm going to go back to the Canada-based isoHunt BitTorrent servers.... They are not going to respect notice-and-notice. We need a stronger mechanism to get those guys, the enablers, truly off the grid. They are not going to keep respecting a notice-and-notice provision. In fact, they are going to rely on my friend Bob to not do anything, because Bob, as a small-business person--
4:20 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Thank you, Mr. Regan and Mr. Johnston.
That ends our first round of five minutes of questioning. Unfortunately, it seems five minutes isn't a lot of time, but I'm trying to stick to the five minutes as well as we can.
Up first now is Mr. Braid, for five minutes.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here this afternoon.
Mr. Johnston, I want to pick up exactly where you left off with respect to the adverse impact of piracy on the music industry in Canada. You painted a bit of a gloomy picture of the state of affairs in Canada and the fact that Canada has become a haven for BitTorrent sites. Could you explain why that has taken place?
4:20 p.m.
President, Canadian Independent Music Association
The structure of the current law allows those BitTorrent sites—at least that's what they are claiming—to get away with posting copyrighted material without the fear of strong litigation or fines against them. The fact that isoHunt has just said in their defence claim in response to a lawsuit in Canada that the laws in Canada allow them to do this and that and therefore what they are doing is legal demonstrates how many holes our law has.
With regard to the copyright bill before us, without that take-down notice or something similar, a strong mechanism to actually tell them they need to take this offending material down or this material that is infringing on other people's rights down, they are going to keep using this business model.
The fact that Megaupload and these others are looking at bringing more piracy into Canada because of our weak laws is a problem, and it flies in the face of what Bill C-11 is trying to do.
Bob.