This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2013.
Christian Paradis Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
Mr. Speaker, asking a question that has nothing to do with what I spoke about is not a question. I will ask the member again what the government is doing here to protect the large majority of artists in our country who are not earning a living.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary constantly asks questions in regard to the amount of debate time this issue has had before the chamber. Therefore, I want to start off by making a statement that the bill before us has been introduced on two separate occasions. Most recent, there has been some limited debate, but not as many hours as the parliamentary secretary tries to give the impression of.
The parliamentary secretary needs to understand why the opposition is somewhat skeptical. The government tries to give the impression that it is open to listening to what the public and members of the opposition have to say.
Bill C-10 was the bill that would increase the number of jails, build bigger jails and so forth. The member for Mount Royal had very good amendments that he brought forward in committee on behalf of the Liberal Party and the government voted all of them down. However, after doing that, when we came back to report stage, the government recognized that there were some serious flaws with its legislation.
The government attempted to bring in those amendments, but found it could not because the opportunity was lost. All the government had to do was just listen to the member for Mount Royal and we would not have had the issue that evolved. However, the government was determined to push through its legislation completely unamended.
I will fast forward to what we have today. We have yet another piece of legislation in which a great deal of concern has been expressed. The government's only response is that the opposition has had so much time to debate this issue, that the public has already made presentations in the last session and expressed concerns.
However, the government turned a deaf ear to everything that was being said. It is not as if the government listened and took action on those issues that were brought forward. Now the government says that it is in a bit of a hurry to pass the bill.
The minister is not as powerful as other ministers who have been able to get time allocation on their bills. This minister had to settle for moving a motion that would prevent any other amendment being brought forward. This is the time to bring amendments to make this a better bill. Imagine if that would have been allowed on Bill C-10, the government could have averted that mess.
The point is we have a bill that we are trying to debate. The minister was not able to get time allocation argued with his House leader, but he settled for a motion to have no more amendments brought forward on the bill. However, there is one outstanding issue that has been raised by a number of different speakers. One would think the government would have come up with some sort of creative way to try to appease or deal with the concerns that members of this chamber have, and it is not just members of the chamber who are concerned. I would suggest the viewing audience and other Canadians should be concerned about the bill and the digital locks.
We can all relate to going to a store to buy either an eight track, cassette or even a record in our younger years. I will reflect a little on my past. I would buy a couple of records, take the songs that I liked and put them onto a blank cassette. I believed that since I had purchased the records, I had the right to copy the song onto a cassette for my personal use.
I do not believe I was alone. I believe there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Canadians who recognized that they should be able to do that since they legitimately purchased a record. They may not enjoy every song on a record, maybe two or three, and they would copy those songs onto a blank cassette so they could pop it into their CD players in their vehicles or whatever else to listen to the music. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think most people would see that as the thing to do and there should be no consequence for doing it.
Let us look at today when we have CDs. CDs are not cheap, per se. I will provide some comment on artists, but we value their contributions in making those masterpieces, in this case music. Consumers should be able to copy songs from a CD onto a shuffle or some other form of MP3 player. If I go to the store later today and buy a CD for my daughter for Christmas, she should be able to copy her favourite songs onto the numerous gadgets she has so she can listen to them.
I do not believe there is anything within Bill C-11 that would ensure she could do that because of the way in which the government seems to be locked in on the need for digital locks and the impact they will have on the average consumer. The example I gave is a very real, tangible example that Canadians will do every day. I am not talking a few people; I am talking thousands. That is one of the issues that has been talked about a lot, yet we do not see it.
We recognize local artists. The Liberal Party of Canada has recognized the contributions that local artists make. They create jobs, generate economic activity, build on our heritage and culture and identify who we are in good part. I participate, as I am sure others do, in all sorts of local festivities, things like Folklorama in Winnipeg. If members have never been, I would encourage them to participate in it.
There are many different cultures that local artists and they will often have their own CDs. Artists attend fundraising events to promote themselves and encourage others. After giving concerts of sorts, they will sign their CDs because they are trying to promote themselves. The average artist does not make that much money. We recognize how important it is to support artists and we will continue to advocate for them. We would look to the government to recognize that.
The government would do well if it was not in such a hurry. I know the parliamentary secretary takes exception when I say it is in a hurry because he feels there has been plenty of time on the issue. I beg to differ. If the government is not prepared to listen and start understanding why we are appealing to the government to do the right thing, it is doing a disservice. I understand there is no time allocation motion on this, but I recognize it as a form of closure because we can no longer move amendments.
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's comments and to all the comments today with great interest because this is an important issue for me personally as well as for many artists in our country.
With respect to the bill, it strikes me that the government has listened to many people from large multinational media corporations and perhaps has not listened enough to the voices of artists. The government consistently likes to talk, for example, to those in the tar sands without talking to environmentalists, or talk to big media conglomerates without talking to artists. I see a trend emerging and I wonder if my colleague sees the same trend.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of concern on the part of the people who view the proceedings here and witness first-hand what is going on, not only on this bill but with other pieces of legislation that comes before us.
The government does seem to have a big company mentality where it forgets about the little guy. In this case, I am not convinced that the government is protecting the best interests of the consumer, the average person, who purchases a CD and wants to store it on a shuffle or some other mechanism. I am not convinced it is listening to what the local artists have to say. Smaller, local artists, the ones who perform at many different festivals and so forth throughout the country, are the ones we should be most concerned about. I am afraid they are not a concern of the government.
Copyright Modernization ActGovernment Orders
December 12th, 2011 / 5:30 p.m.
Oak Ridges—Markham Ontario
Conservative
Paul Calandra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage
Mr. Speaker, like our friends in the NDP, that member is also starting to change his position a bit. Now he is talking about continuing debate and hearing from people.
The member spoke about who we actually talked to and from whom we received information. My office received hundreds of emails. We have met with a lot of people. The largest entertainment labour union in the world, representing 110,000 in the stage, motion picture and television production industry, supports the bill. Over 14,000 people in the video gaming industry support the bill. Across Canada, 25 university student associations support the bill. Approximately 300 of Canada's business associations and boards of trade support the bill.
The movie industry is important to Manitoba's economy. It did suffer a dip, but it is starting to recover.
What solutions does the hon. member have for that? Could he identify one music CD that has a lock on it that he is unable to transfer to his iPod?
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to the support he had received for the legislation. In part, the legislation does have some merits, but a vast majority of Canadians have shared some overriding concerns with me and other members of the opposition and these need to be addressed.
I made reference to the digital locks, and the member challenged me to list a CD. I suspect that if I contacted my daughter, she might be able to help me out on that issue.
The point is it would have taken a little more courage by the minister to have stood in his place and provided assurances that the legislation would not impact consumers. That is the problem with the legislation. The minister cannot stand in this place and tell 30 million plus consumers that they have nothing to fear in terms of digital locks. The parliamentary secretary is not confident enough in the government's position to provide that guarantee to the Canadian consumer.
I will jump up and defend the Canadian consumer over the selected few individuals or groups that the parliamentary secretary has referenced. I wait for the parliamentary secretary to provide that assurance.
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-11. In many ways, this bill and its predecessors are part of the reason I am here today. In 2006, I came to Ottawa as an artist to discuss copyright with the then heritage minister and the then industry minister. I came with a couple of other artists, Brendan Canning from the Broken Social Scene and Steven Page from the Barenaked Ladies. We came to talk to the government about what it was like to be a working musician and why we did not think suing fans was such a good idea.
One of the interesting things that came out of those meetings was that people were surprised that we did not want to sue everybody. That was the kind of thing the government had been hearing time and time again from those who had its ear, and those who had its ear were then, in 2006, and today, in 2011, the multinational media companies.
It is important to underline the fact that those companies, which employ many people and many of the people they employ are friends of mine and I, therefore, want to see a healthy and vibrant music business, but those companies do not speak for artists. They speak for the shareholders of multinational corporations. Their sole interest is in their bottom line, which is not necessarily the same as the bottom line of artists. It is also not necessarily the same bottom line that consumers have.
For example, we have many people in the arts and culture sector who look at the multinational corporations that, let us be honest, own most of the content that we are talking about here, and they have had historical struggles with these large entities.
One of the things about Bill C-11 and copyright generally is that there is an opportunity here to right some of the historical imbalances that we all know only too well. The musicians who barely eke by while the owners of their content makes millions upon millions. We hear those stories all the time. It has been noted that the music industry, like many of the creative fields, is a great place to get rich if one is lucky but a lousy place to make a living.
The copyright reform that we are talking about today is an opportunity to right some of that but this bill misses that opportunity by a mile. In fact, like the government on so many other occasions in this House, it likes to play politics. It likes to divide, rule, separate, hive off different groups and try to get them to bicker with other groups in its own effort to ram through legislation.
It is heartening to hear that the government is changing its tune about listening to the opposition around amendments. As we know, over the last several months in this House the government has not been interested in hearing anything form the opposition. In fact, when we have good ideas, it just rejects them. Occasionally, at the 11th hour it realizes there are some good ideas and that it had better rush them into bills only to discover that it cannot because it is too late. It is nice to hear that around Bill C-11 there is a willingness to listen.
One of the big issues for us on this side of the House is that artists get paid. I think Canadian society would agree that it is in our interest as a society to see a healthy, vibrant arts and culture sector.
However, when we have artists making below poverty wages to create the content that makes this country the rich and joyous place that it can sometimes be, it is incumbent on us in this place to look at ways in which we can foster a vibrant arts and culture sector so that more of the wealth that is created in this sector ends up trickling into the pockets of artists.
Forty-six billion dollars of Canada's GDP were created in the arts and culture sector in 2007. Twenty-five billion dollars in taxes for all levels of government in 2007 on an investment of $7.9 billion is pretty good. There are 600,000 workers in the sector, 4% of the Canadian workforce. This is perhaps my most favourite stat of all: Canadians spent twice as much on live performing arts in 2008 than they did on sports events. That is one stat that I particularly enjoy saying as often as possible.
The reason I am mentioning these statistics is that the arts and culture sector is a major driver of the Canadian economy, which is partially why this bill is so important and also why we need to take a serious look at the bill because for artists this bill falls short. It falls short for consumers on a number of levels, too, and for businesses as well. There are many ways in which the bill needs to be looked at.
However, I will just step back for a second. When I first came to Ottawa in 2006 as an artist to talk about this bill, I was shocked by what I heard. I heard that the government had no ideas, other than to lock down content and sue consumers. The government asked if we had any better ideas. Since 2006, I think there have been a lot of good ideas but very few of them are reflected in the bill that we see before us.
I come from the music sector. I am a songwriter, composer and producer. Copyright is something that I rely on. It is something that has helped me make a living in this country as an artist, which is something I am very proud of.
We have an opportunity to make this bill a fairer, more balanced playing field for artists. One of the particular pieces of the bill that makes absolutely no sense to us is the broadcast mechanical. Why would the government take $20 million from broadcasters who are making a $2.5 billion a year business here in Canada? Why would it just pluck that out and let it go?
We in our party are against that and we will be tabling amendments at committee that will seek to change that part of the bill because we do not want to see artists not get paid. In fact, the bill takes us a step backward in terms of compensation for artists, instead of looking at the myriad of possibilities that the digital era presents for us in the arts and culture sector.
Bruce Hyer NDP Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member on our side, who is a talented musician and an eloquent member of Parliament, is specific and broad at the same time. It is about digital locks.
It seems to me, from listening to him and others, that digital locks are bad for consumers because they prevent Canadians from having full access to digital content that they purchased. It seems that they are bad for artistic creativity and bad for innovation. It seems that they are bad for education because they may make criminals out of instructors who access content for educational purposes. Do I have it about right and, if I am wrong, could he correct me?
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that the bill does not really address and one of the opportunities it misses is the idea of blanket licences. I come from a sector where we licence songs through a collective and those songs, whenever and wherever they are played, a portion of a revenue stream comes back to the creators of that content. The problem with digital locks is that they lock up the potential for further revenue streams for artists. Digital locks also do not provide the protection for content creators and owners because, as we have seen happen in the music industry, those locks can be circumvented. This is why the digital lock provision is troubling for us in our party.
Copyright Modernization ActGovernment Orders
December 12th, 2011 / 5:40 p.m.
Oak Ridges—Markham Ontario
Conservative
Paul Calandra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage
Mr. Speaker, I note that this is the second time the member has had the opportunity to speak to the bill. Far from limiting debate, this is offering more opportunity for him to do that. He has also mentioned that he is prepared to bring forward some amendments.
We also heard the member from Thunder Bay talk about criminalizing Canadians. I wonder if the hon. member might point out the section of the bill that would actually criminalize Canadians.
He also talked about the minister not having the opportunity to speak to artists. I was in the parliamentary dining room today when the hon. member came by my table where I was with the minister and Jim Cuddy who is doing a great concert for us tonight. The minister was there. I am not sure if Mr. Cuddy merits being a Canadian artist.
The member also talked about having had the opportunity to be here before he was elected to this place to talk about copyright. We have been at this a long time. As a member from Toronto, how could he possibly promote anything that would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs in the movie sector in that great city?
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, once again we have the laundry list of questions from the parliamentary secretary. Absolutely, Jim Cuddy is one of our great Canadian artists.
The problem we have here is that the balance with the government is never right. We have a parade of the captains of global industry who do not even need to knock on the door of the government. They get the red carpet every time they drive up to Ottawa.
The problem is that we do not hear enough voices from those who actually make their living on the ground in the arts and culture sector being able to speak to the government. Our job on this side of the House is to ensure we have an engaged debate on Bill C-11. It is also important that we bring some new ideas into this bill and, hopefully, the government will listen.
Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary talked about bringing forward amendments. The Conservatives' record on supporting amendments is about the same as the Indianapolis Colts' record this year in the NFL, which is zero.
The opposition parties understand that there needs to be a change in the legislation, that there needs to be a change in the rules and that we need to adapt to the technology. The rules have not kept up with the technology.
What we and my NDP colleague are trying to say is that this restricts the creative community. It restricts those who make the product, the Shania Twains, the Bryan Adams, the Tragically Hips, or pick a Canadian artist. It is those people who create the product who will be handcuffed by this particular legislation.
I would like the hon. member's comments on that.
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, the issue here is that if digital locks worked and if the downloading of music were the sole issue that was troubling the music industry, then maybe we would have a conversation here. However, they do not work and there are many issues troubling the industry.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise in this great House once again to represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. It is a great privilege to come on stage right after the hon. member for Davenport. It seems I have been doing that ever since we were 16, having to go on stage with him at Larry's Hideaway and The Edge and all the other places that we played across Canada, and learning very early on that the money artists rely on, the money that comes back in payment, is so little.
Artists live on pennies. It is the accumulation of pennies. That is the fundamental principle of copyright. If we take those pennies away, the ability of artists to maintain careers evaporates.
When the government strikes $20 million that goes directly to artists out of the bill and thinks it is no big deal because the Conservatives' buddies in the big broadcast centres want a better break, the government is not providing any industrial advantage, but it is making it impossible for some artists to continue. Year after year, many artists have to sit down. My colleague and I worked with many great Canadian artists who, after a while, simply could not make it. They count on those pennies coming in to offset the incredible investment they must make as artists; when those revenue streams are not there in sufficient number, or if they are ripped off and are unable to see a balance, then Canadian content is affected.
The debate on copyright has been excellent for Canada and for Parliament. I was here in 2004, when the understanding of copyright was to pass the bill really fast and get it done. There have probably been some advantages, because we now have a House where we can discuss the implications of technological protection measures, and it is important to discuss these kinds of things.
When we pass elements in this House, for example, on technological protection measures, they will have implications. In some areas those implications will be positive. In other areas there will be implications that will be extremely negative. That is the fundamental balance of copyright. To simply say it is one or the other, that it is a black or white world, does not work in the realm of copyright. It never has.
If we go back to the copyright debates that happened in France, England, the United States in the 1700s and the 1800s, the issue was that necessity to find balance between the public good and the private right.
The private right is defined by two basic players. One is the author and the other is the publisher. They are not necessarily the same creator. Who has the right to make a copy? That is the fundamental principle of copyright. Who has the ability to access that artistic work, and how long should the control over it last in order to maintain a public good?
The work is not a piece of property. This fact has been defined in Parliament and has been defined in law. An artistic work is an idea that is put into the public realm. It exists for a period of time during which someone is able to receive exclusive compensation for that work and has that exclusive right, but after a certain time that idea belongs to the larger community, which will base future artistic works on it. That is the balancing act.
In reforming copyright, it is essential for Canada to upgrade its copyright regimentation in 2011. We have a national obligation, because one of our greatest exports--maybe our greatest export, above our oil, gas and gold--is our international artistic reputation. We have produced great artists internationally, so we have a national priority in maintaining that reputation.
There is an industrial component, of course, because we do not simply want to see goods being knocked off, ripped off and traded off. If we put an intellectual investment into a product, we have a right to a response.
There is also the creative community. We have been speaking about it a great deal in the New Democratic caucus, because we believe the fundamental principle of copyright is that our artists should get paid. When we look at artistic copyright legislation that takes away rights that previously existed, we have a problem with it.
It does not mean that the New Democratic Party will say it is against copyright. No. New Democrats support copyright, and we want to make sure that the artist has a right to get paid. However, the other essential element of copyright is the public good, and this is where we will sometimes butt heads with the industrial component.
We have created an incredible digital commons. In terms of the ability of people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas and create on a base of older works, there has been nothing like it in the history of civilization. It has certainly created havoc with older business models.
The other day I was in a record store. I was talking to the owner of the record store about all these young kids who are coming in and asking about Sun Ra and Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Gene Vincent, artists we would never have heard of when we were younger. We did not know these artists even existed, but because of YouTube and the Internet, there is so much more potential. That digital commons must be protected.
Within that digital commons there are obviously some major issues in terms of people trading off works. We have Pirate Bays, where entire works are available and people are not paid for them, but the issue is to not simply lock down content overall. We do not simply let industry decide what rights artists have; we bring it to Parliament. Within Parliament, we decide what rights a citizen should be able to have.
For example, a citizen should be able to have the right to extract, under a digital lock, work for study or for commentary. Anybody in the documentary film industry will tell us they need to be able to extract excerpts from films because they are making commentary on it. That right is defined by Parliament. We have all agreed to that right.
However, a digital lock would simply override that right. The right given in Parliament might not be the right given by the industry. That is not insurmountable, but it is certainly problematic.
We need to define, as most of our European counterparts have done on the digital lock provisions, that it is the right of an industrial organization to put a digital lock in place to protect their product from being ripped off.
This is what we would say. The gaming industry has made enormous investments, and digital locks are essential for that business model. However, if a student breaks a digital lock because he or she cannot see or is partly blind and has to break the digital lock to access the work on a Kindle, that student is not the same as someone who breaks a digital lock to rip off video games.
That was defined in the WIPO convention. It was very clearly articulated that in our international obligations we have to protect the intellectual property but that we can also define legal exemptions within Parliament or within a federal government.
That is the issue on the digital locks; the issue is not to say that digital locks are good or digital locks are bad, but that we need to define the exemptions, just as we have to find out why certain areas of important revenue streams that artists have relied on are being erased. We do not support erasing artists' rights that they have exerted.
In terms of education, there is so much potential in the digital realm. We have an ability to transform a nation as spread out as ours in doing education or library loans. We had never even been able to contemplate these capabilities before.
The problem is that within this bill there are provisions that have to be fixed. Again, it is not that this bill is going to be black or white, but things have to be fixed. For example, a student in Fort Albany who is taking long distance courses and getting course notes over the Internet would be told that after 30 days, that piece of paper would have to be burned up or disappear. However, a student going to Collège Boréal or Northern College in Timmins would be given the paper notes and would get to keep those notes. There cannot be two sets of rights, one in the analog paper world and a lesser set in the digital realm.
We need to clarify that. We have asked many times whether the government would work with us to amend the act, because we are committed to reforming Canada's copyright legislation. At least since I have been here, the position of the New Democratic Party has been that we want copyright to move forward; however, we must amend this bill, because if we do not amend it, there will be many perhaps unintended consequences, and we have seen where those consequences will be.
We are telling the government that if it expects support to get this legislation through, it should show willingness to sit down and go through the problems. There are problems with this bill. There will be problems with any copyright bill.
It is about restoring that sense of balance. We have not seen that yet. That is the fundamental principle of copyright. We will remain committed to the principle of a balanced legislative framework.
Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC
Mr. Speaker, different groups of artists have different needs. The needs of consumers and creators are also different, and heaven knows that this bill is far from perfect. I would like my colleague to speak a bit more about the amendments that are required and that should be made to this bill, even though we know that they will probably be rejected.