Evidence of meeting #6 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 music.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Thank you, Ms. Marrelli and Mr. Angus.
Mr. Armstrong, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for their presentations.
Mr. Gray, you talked about the notice-and-notice provision. You mentioned that you think that the artist should pay you, or pay through you, to contact the potential offender. Elaborate on that for a minute, because that strikes me as not an effective way to manage the system.
Counsel, Regulatory Law, Bell, CHUM Radio
I'll have to take the question for Mr. Gray.
Radio doesn't do notice-and-notice. For that matter, neither does Bell Media. With respect to the way we view things, it's interesting when we hear that ISPs make money off piracy, because in fact the business of being an ISP is to make money on top-quality Internet service. By providing Internet service we're a common carrier, and as a common carrier we're neutral. That's decided by the Telecommunications Act.
We open the door to all kinds of things. We give you the ability to do whatever you like. You can check the weather, you can check a local business website, you can do downloading, as Mr. Del Mastro does, of legal content, of legal movies from wherever he gets them, possibly ITunes as well, which is legal content. But to make the assumption that ISPs have some kind of control over the Internet would be false. We can't control what goes on online, and we can't control what people do online. We're simply neutral.
We expect, though—from what we've seen and from the testimony earlier in 2011—that reaching out to individuals on an individual level is an excellent way to educate them on piracy. It is effective. I think our colleagues at Rogers gave testimony to that effect.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
What if someone is using your technology to commit a crime, something illegal, and you're contacted by the creator of that? Don't you think, since it's your technology being used, that you should have the responsibility to notify—we're just talking about notification here—your client that they're doing something illegal? That's all we're asking you to do, correct?
Counsel, Regulatory Law, Bell, CHUM Radio
That's correct. We would be happy to do that. We have absolutely no problem passing along the message, in particular because we're both a copyright owner and an ISP.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
When you say that you want someone else to pay for this service, you're asking them to remunerate you for notifying your client who is doing something illegal using your technology.
Counsel, Regulatory Law, Bell, CHUM Radio
People use technology every day, all kinds of technology. I mean, the pen is technology from a quill, right? People can do whatever they like with technology.
As an ISP, we're totally neutral. We offer a technology; it does many, many things. Unfortunately, there are people who use it to do bad things. It costs to build a service specifically dedicated to target one issue for one set of individuals or an industry, which we also are part of as Bell Media. As Bell Media, we are happy to pay for that service because it helps us protect our business interests. As an ISP, we would expect to be paid for that service, but we're not even asking for profits; we just want to recover the cost.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. McCarty, what would your clients think if they had to pay the ISP provider to provide this notice?
President, ole
Well, most of the creators in the music industry are individuals in small businesses, and the cost of getting a major telecom to do that kind of work could easily be prohibitive for them. They would not be able to do it. As it is now, there's a similar system on YouTube, and we're having a difficult time managing it—and we're a fairly large company. If we had to manage it for every ISP in Canada, it would be a nightmare.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. McCarty, just to continue, could you define a term you used--“corporate music piracy”?
President, ole
It’s the free riders I was referring to, the people who profit parasitically from piracy. In the ISP situation, they're selling bandwidth to people who are pirating music and movies and other copyrighted materials; that's how they profit. They're not, by the way, dumb pipes; they're smart networks that can act smart or dumb as the situation suits them.
President, ole
They could discriminate between different types of traffic on the network. They can identify their customers. They can identify child porn for the criminal investigators. They're not neutral. They're not dumb pipes.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Ms. Marrelli, language that you could produce for us would be useful, and as someone who uses archives, I have some concerns there myself, so please get that to us as soon as you can.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
I promise to do that.
Conservative
The Chair NDP Glenn Thibeault
Thank you, Mr. Armstrong and witnesses.
Now we will move on to Mr. Regan.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As the witnesses were coming this morning, Mr. Del Mastro was suggesting that if you're a radio station you should be able to buy the product once—the song, the music—and be able to reformat it. But what the Conservatives are saying about digital locks is that if you're an individual, or if you are the archives and you have information you either received lawfully or paid for, you shouldn't be able to reformat it if it's digitally locked. This seems to be contradictory.
Ms. Marrelli, you talked about the problems that digital locks and the inability to circumvent them create for you. I think what you're saying is they should be able to do this for a lawful purpose.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
What's your reaction when you heard the Conservatives telling their constituents not to worry if they broke a digital lock, because no one was going to go after them? Does that reassure you?
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
Archives generally don't break the law. We just don't.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Okay, let me ask you about the photographer as copyright owner, because to me it's attractive. We had photographers here yesterday who feel strongly that this is a positive move. But I take your point about the problem it creates for you where the owner is not ascertainable.
What is your solution to this?
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
The solution is definitely orphan-works legislation, which we know is not in Bill C-11, but which is essential for solving these problems. We understand that Bill C-11 is not going to solve this problem. It makes our problems more complex, because it can make ascertaining the copyright holder, owner, or creator more complicated than it was. But the problem is already there. The fix is not in Bill C-11. We need the fix, and we need to move forward on this.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Are you saying the fix should be in Bill C-11? Is this a bill that's not ready for prime time?
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
It's not ready for prime time.