Thank you.
This has been a real concern for us since it was first put into the old Bill C-32. A number of concerns have been raised about this, particularly the sense that it's creating a two-tiered set of educational rights—that students who leave a classroom are not frisked for their notes or for their reproductions that might be part of the lesson plan, but if they're taking any kind of online development, they will be obliged to destroy reproductions 30 days after the course ends.
The other day it was raised by our colleagues that if they were watching this as a video—not that I think students watch video anymore, but still if we are going back to old VHS tapes and they're watching the feed—what would happen if they made copies and gave it to their friends? Well, education might break out.
It seems to be an unnecessary intrusion into the affairs of the classroom that if materials are being protected under collective licences and the authors are being paid if exceptions to copyright are being made under educational purposes that would exist in a classroom—for example, if students make a copy when they receive their lesson plan and they take a copy from a PDF that's under copyright and they put it in their notes and then they bring it as part of their final work—that they would have to be responsible for finding what's under the exceptions and what isn't and would have to be destroyed. It seems to be an unnecessary overwrite and interference in the potential of digital learning.
What we think, with the importance of digital learning, is that we have incredible opportunities for Canadian educational institutions. We should have good collective licences in place to ensure that the people who are creating the works are being compensated, but this doesn't seem to address any of the basic needs. So we would be opposed to it.