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.
Executive Director, Canadian Artists Representation Copyright Collective Inc.
You have to prove it.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Yes, right, and that's the world we live in. If you're going to claim something's illegal, you have to prove it.
And to that point, I want to quickly talk about CIMA and their argument about illegally posted Internet activity, and the need to have notice and take-down so we can address illegally posted Internet activity. We all want to address illegally posted Internet activity, but what about legally posted Internet activity? Notice and take-down require people who post things legally to take them down as well.
Secretary, Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Music Association
Sir, I'm not quite sure I understand your question.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
With a notice and take-down, someone can basically say that what you're posting up there is illegally posted. There's no due process, it's just automically taken down.
Secretary, Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Music Association
Don't get us wrong there. We believe that there should be some due process. What we don't believe is that it's practical to expect it.
There are literally millions of infringements every day on the Internet—millions. Are we going to have to start millions of lawsuits because of the notice-and-notice provision? Or are we going to have a fair due process, in between, that doesn't have to be the ISP deciding, and that could be some fair process? Can all these great minds put together come up with a Canadian version that actually balances these issues? Because now it's balanced right on the other side, and it's going to create a haven for pirates in this country.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I'd say that's exactly what the legislation here is designed to address, taken on its whole. But on that one particular issue, there are a lot of people out there who would say it's completely unfair for someone to force a family who has posted a family video of their child performing something—
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
It's completely unfair for someone to be able to force that family to take down this clip of their child doing something without having actually proven that it's illegal. It could be completely legal, but they have to take it down anyway, under your proposal.
Secretary, Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Music Association
We aren't saying that at all. Respectfully, we're not saying that.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
But you are. You're advocating for notice and take-down. That's exactly what you're advocating for.
Secretary, Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Music Association
You're saying that. We're not saying that.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Great. Thank you very much.
We have now reached five o'clock.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for coming today and for presenting your perspective and your ideas. It truly is appreciated.
With that, I'll ask members of the committee to be back here by 5:05 at the latest. That's when I am starting. We have three minutes, because the next group is up, and we know that we have bells coming up.
We'll suspend for three minutes.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
If everyone can take their seats, please, we'll start momentarily.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming to the second part of the fifth meeting of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-11.
We are very short for time for the second part because of votes that will be happening later on tonight. We will be going until 5:30, when we will have bells, and we will be asking for unanimous consent from all parties to carry on for about 15 minutes afterwards.
What we have asked the witnesses and guests to do is to shorten their opening statements to five minutes, which allows us to get through at least the first round of questioning, in which a lot of the information that you want to share comes out.
We also have hard copies of your opening statements, so thank you. I encourage all of the members around the committee table to read those opening statements in full.
We have, from Audio Ciné Films Inc., Jean-François Cormier and Bertrand-Olivier Desmarteau. From Criterion Pictures we have John Fisher and Suzanne Hitchon. From Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma we have Yves Légaré and Sylvie Lussier.
We will start off the presentations, for five minutes, with Audio Ciné FIlms Inc.
Jean-François Cormier President and General Manager, Audio Ciné Films Inc.
Good afternoon, and thank you, Mr. Chair and Bill C-11 committee members, for allowing us to appear today to speak on behalf of our industry regarding what we sincerely hope are unintended consequences of Bill C-11.
My name is Jean-François Cormier, and I am the general manager for Audio Ciné Films, which is based in Montreal. Accompanying me is Monsieur Desmarteau, our communications manager.
Audio Ciné Films is a rights representative and distributor for thousands of films in use in educational institutions across Canada. Our main offices are in Montreal, but we deal with organizations and institutions from every single part of Canada, in both French and English. We are among hundreds of Canadian companies that are involved in the production and distribution of content to the educational sector. We provide content, rights, and services at fair market prices to thousands of schools, colleges, and universities across the country.
A good example of what we do is the movie Monsieur Lazhar, which was Canada's submission for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards last Sunday. Educational organizations can easily present this film, along with thousands of other titles, such as Charlotte's Web and Twelve Angry Men, that are covered with their licence from Audio Ciné Films.
Audio Ciné Films is but one organization in an industry that represents over 500 companies, employs in excess of 8,000 people, and generates approximately $30 million to $50 million in revenues per year.
Specifically speaking for Audio Ciné Films, we typically invest hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to publicize and market the products we represent and maintain a website, which contains information on all the film rights we represent. Our website also allows schools to do film searches based on specific subjects, such as Canadian history, literature, and social issues. It also offers free access to hundreds of film study guides.
As our industry moves toward streaming and digital formats, we foresee having to invest substantial additional resources to keep up with technology and demand from the educational sector. Both ACF and Criterion VEC, who you will also be hearing from today, are privately owned companies and have never received any government assistance or subsidies. We sell our products and services at competitive market rates.
Our market is one of the rare sectors in the film industry that operates without the support of public funds. Yet it remains highly vulnerable to the changes proposed in Bill C-11. Although we certainly understand and support the need for updated copyright regulations, several new clauses in Bill C-11 will have what we believe are unintended consequences that will cause serious financial damage to our business and our industry as a whole.
In particular, a proposed change to section 29.5 of the Copyright Act, on performances, eliminates the requirement for educational institutions to obtain and pay for licences currently needed for the presentation of cinematographic works in an educational context. It further places a new reverse onus and monitoring responsibility on our industry for violations, reduces or eliminates previous penalties, and eliminates requirements for record-keeping.
We have submitted our proposed amendment in our brief. We believe it can easily be added to section 29.5 of the Copyright Act.
Our industry as a whole almost entirely depends on the educational sector for its livelihood. The production, rights representation, and distribution of cinematographic works to schools, colleges, and universities, and the licensing revenue this generates, are critical to our industry. Without some minor technical modifications, Bill C-11 will lead to the overall loss of jobs and investments, and it will lead to a decline of content available to Canadian schools as financial incentives are removed.
We are appealing to committee members today to recognize the harm that will be caused to our industry and the jobs that will be lost if the proposed amendments to section 29.5 are passed as written.
Small businesses such as ours are at the core of Canadian economic success. Nothing demonstrates this better than our industry, which is made up of mostly small unsubsidized privately owned companies, staffed by hard-working and innovative people.
Thank you.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Thank you very much for that presentation.
Now to Criterion Pictures, for five minutes.
Suzanne Hitchon President and General Manager, Head Office, Criterion Pictures
Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for allowing us to appear today and to speak to you on behalf of both our company and our industry.
My name is Suzanne Hitchon, and I'm here with John Fisher. Together we are representing Criterion Pictures, a division of Visual Education Centre, one of the largest distributors of audiovisual materials in Canada. Our company focuses on the distribution of curriculum-based materials for in-classroom educational purposes. We have been in business since the 1960s.
Our industry provides a vast array of audiovisual content that covers all grade levels and all subject matters in both of Canada's official languages. We are here today on behalf of an entire industry that may very well cease to exist should Bill C-11 pass into law.
We operate independently of government subsidies, and our industry as a whole employs more than 8,000 Canadians.
For more than 50 years, our industry has been providing a highly valued service at fair market prices to educational institutions, while at the same time contributing $30 million to $50 million in annual revenue to the Canadian economy. Like many private industries and small businesses in Canada, we have certainly faced our fair share of challenges. We've had to adapt to change and take financial risks, adjusting to new technologies and budgetary constraints while at the same time meeting the needs of our customers as they have demanded increased services at lower prices. This is the reality of the private sector.
In recent years our company alone has invested millions of dollars of our own money to build a K-to-12 digital delivery platform comprising more than 25,000 audiovisual curriculum-based programs to meet the needs of our customers. Through all this change, we have survived and grown without government support or financial assistance. However, since the inception of this industry sector, nothing has posed a greater threat to its continued existence, to our very livelihood and our lifelong investment, than the passing of this new legislation in its current form. Should Bill C-11 pass in its current state, it will have catastrophic consequences for both our business and that of our industry.
As currently written, Bill C-11 will eliminate requirements for educational institutions to pay for copies of materials they currently license from us, representing a direct loss of millions of dollars in revenue and effectively putting us out of business. The current legislation places a new reverse onus on our industry to monitor more than 15,000 schools throughout Canada for violations—an impossible task. Additionally, it subsequently reduces penalties for damages and eliminates all requirements for record-keeping.
These new conditions in Bill C-11 will lead to an overall loss of jobs and investment and a decline of Canadian content, as most financial incentives for private investment are now removed. As a result, students and teachers will become more dependent on U.S.-produced cinemagraphic works, as Canadian product will be difficult to find.
The government will ultimately need to fill the gap by providing more taxpayer funding to organizations such as the National Film Board of Canada and/or the CBC, if it feels Canadian programs have any value.
The passing of Bill C-11 in its current form is of benefit to neither the non-theatrical industry like us nor the Canadian educational community. There is no winner. Educators are not asking to be exempt from the current copyright provisions, but that is what this bill prescribes. This was clearly outlined during the testimony of the Council of Ministers of Education during the previous Bill C-32 committee hearings, when the chair of the CMEC, the Minister of Education for Nova Scotia, stated and I quote:
We are not asking for anything for free. The education system, the sector, pays for licences and copyright, and will continue to do so. What we are asking for with these amendments is to have things clarified.
Ms. Rosalind Penfound, deputy minister of the CMEC, testified:
Our assessment is that each year across Canada there's likely more than a billion dollars spent by the education sector to pay creators for their books, movies, art, etc.... We would not anticipate that this bill would in any way reduce the amount of money the education sector would be putting into these efforts.
Finally, this is from Ms. Cynthia Andrew, from yesterday's testimony, from the Canadian School Boards Association:
...it has been suggested that the education community does not want to pay for education materials, and this is incorrect. Education institutions currently pay for content and for copying of these materials.... CSBA is not suggesting, nor have we ever proposed, that school boards should not pay for intellectual property.
That's the end of the quote.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Thank you, Ms. Hitchon.
Unfortunately, your five minutes are up. I'm very sorry, but we are moving forward. You will have an opportunity to answer questions and bring that stuff forward there.
We're moving forward now to the Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma.
Sylvie Lussier President, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma
Good afternoon and thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
The Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma is a craft union representing nearly 1,400 authors working in the audiovisual sector.
I'd like to start by making it clear that we are not in favour of the adoption of the bill in its current form. Even though the bill contains a few interesting elements, we believe that the measures intended to strengthen copyright are much less numerous than those limiting or restricting it.
Every update to the Copyright Act brings with it a whole new set of exceptions, which have an impact on creators' incomes, cause problems when interpreting the act and can lead to more litigation in the dealings between copyright owners and users. Bill C-11 unfortunately follows in that vein.
At the present time, the private copying regime applies only to sound recordings. With the introduction of digital formats that make it easier to access and copy contents, we think it would be beneficial for the private copying regime to be extended to books, films, etc. in order to protect the economic value of all types of works. However, over the long term, Bill C-11 will put an end to the private copying regime since compensation will be limited to blank audio media…
NDP
President, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma
It's because I have only five minutes.
President, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma
I'm sorry.
So I was saying that Bill C-11, over the long term, will put an end to the private copying regime since compensation will be limited to blank audio media rather than extended to other media and devices now in common use. By also creating new exceptions, such as those allowing reproduction for private purposes, the government has put up a roadblock to any subsequent extension of the private copying regime to the audiovisual field and other sectors.
Making copies for private purposes is a widespread practice that cannot realistically be eliminated or criminalized. The private copying regime essentially makes the practice legal by compensating authors. At a time when content is circulating more than ever on a variety of platforms, the extension of the private copying regime would in fact be a potential solution to the problem of controlling the use of works.
The bill permits the use of legitimately acquired material in user generated content … created for non-commercial purposes. However, this applies only to creations that do not affect the market for the original material, such as creating home videos or mash-ups of video clips. The justifications given for this exception are that more and more, Canadians are using content in ways that contribute to the cultural fabric of our society and it is important for Canadians to be able to fully participate in the digital economy.
It's hard to fully participate in the digital economy if commercial purposes are to be avoided. There is no doubt that certain uses are fairly harmless but the application of this exception could be much broader and difficult to interpret. Using one work to create another also means that the author's moral rights in the integrity of the author's work are ignored. On what basis can the government allow the author's creative output to be appropriated by others? This new exception opens the door to a variety of uses that will be impossible to control.
We have nothing against parody and satire. Our authors are actually the creators of some of it. But as much as we defend their right to produce that type of content, we also refuse to allow works to be appropriated solely to profit from their success and fame.
Many authors have produced parody and satire without being sued. Why does the government find it useful to make this change by including parody and satire in fair dealing? Is there not a risk of unnecessarily extending the scope of that exception, opening the door to a more lax interpretation, and fostering new court cases?
In general, the exceptions are supposedly motivated by a desire for balance between copyright owners and users. The exceptions in Bill C-11 cover the audiovisual sector, but go beyond that to encompass other sectors. Nowhere is it demonstrated that free access to content helps achieve greater balance between the two sides.
And yet, in recent years, thanks to digitization, it is becoming easier and easier to access and copy works but more complicated to provide compensation. The imbalance indeed exists but it is clearly tipped in favour of users over copyright owners.
The current act contains all the parameters needed to ensure a balance between copyright owners and users. For example, copyright licensing agencies help make content easier to access while the Copyright Board can intervene to set pricing if the parties involved are not able to reach a negotiated agreement.
Before adding new copyright exceptions, the government could also have considered that copyright is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that international treaties such as the Berne Convention specify that exceptions should, as a rule, be special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.
February 29th, 2012 / 5:20 p.m.
President, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma
Okay, but I would just like to tell you that we are tabling a petition today signed by Culture équitable, a group of 27 agencies. As of February 23, it had gotten the support of 14,118 citizens. This petition was sent to the committee in November, and we are giving it to you again today.