Evidence of meeting #12 for Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was copyright.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
A good 12 or 15 affect us directly. There are some that are of general application, such as private copying or user-generated non-commercial content, and so on. Those affect all categories of copyright owners, including us.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
If I'm not mistaken, none of these exceptions, other than two, provide for compensation. Which ones are they?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
Now, the licenses we currently have with schools with respect to photocopying are being extended to include print reproduction and digital distribution of copyrighted works.
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
It's not absolutely clear whether compensation will remain the same or whether it can be negotiated based on other conditions. At least it is not being abolished, which is a definite improvement over to other provisions.
Furthermore, people with a visual impairment will be allowed to reprint and import works. That can be done through tariffs paid to collective societies for copyright owners.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I believe I heard you say that the bill as a whole, or through certain exceptions, violates some of our international commitments. Could you be more specific in that regard?
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
The Canadian government has ratified a number of treaties, including the WIPO treaties, the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement. All of these treaties include a provision under which exceptions relating to copyright must be limited to special cases which do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work or the interests of creators.
In that regard, I am not the only one to be of that view. Several experts provided testimony before the legislative committee studying Bill C-32, including Ysolde Gendreau of ILAA Canada, and Georges Azzaria. The Quebec Bar and a number of other international associations have written many letters on this issue. In their opinion, the exceptions proposed by the Canadian government, particularly regarding fair use, contravene Canada's international obligations, because they are far too broad. Furthermore, given that they are already subject to remuneration, they will necessarily conflict with the rights of copyright owners.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you, Ms. Messier.
This is addressed to the three of you.
In the past, I've heard some say that this will indeed result in more cumbersome legal processes. These same people added that this may mean that writers or publishers will be forced to go to court, but that this would ultimately by paid by collective societies. Their conclusion was that they were complaining for nothing, because writers will not be the ones paying the legal fees; rather, their collective societies will.
Would you care to comment on that?
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Writers Association of Canada
If I may, the collectives give all of their money to the rights holders except for what they need to administer.
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Writers Association of Canada
If we have to go to court for 10 years, that's our money that's being spent. As Mr. Freeman, I think, pointed out the other day, our money is being spent on lawyers instead of feeding our families.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Let's come back to education now.
If I'm not mistaken, you are asking that the term “education” be deleted from Bill C-32. We agree with you on the fact that this is a step backward that presents a risk for creators, and that it is not balanced in that respect. However, for other reasons, we don't go as far as to suggest removing that term, because education is important. What we want to do is limit the impact on creators as much as possible.
Do you have something in mind?
The solution I have been thinking of is in two parts. First of all, “education” would be defined in as restrictive a fashion as possible, excluding professional training. Second, the test would have to be as rigourous as possible, in order to limit use of this exception.
Do you have any comments on that?
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Writers Association of Canada
Definitely, we would prefer it. We don't think that the word “education” needs to be in there. We think that private study and so on--
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Writers Association of Canada
I'm not a lawyer. I'm sure you're all familiar with this document that was published a week ago today. In our coalition, we do have some very intelligent legalists are working on amendments, as I mentioned in the written brief that we submitted to you, but we're not prepared to bring them forward because we're still hoping that perhaps, with the will of the committee, you'll see that this huge broad exception that you can drive a truck through could be removed, and we could still have a bill that works reasonably well.
In fact, the system we have now of licensing our works through our collectives, despite what Mr. Knopf said in the last panel, is not a fortune. It's a tiny percentage of what it costs for education.
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Writers Association of Canada
We believe the system that we have now is working well.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you very much. Since I only have seven minutes, I am going to move quite quickly.
Ms. Messier, I'd like to talk about fair use. Ms. DesRosiers, who appeared before you, told us that she saw no reason why fair use, applied to the educational sector, would take away compensation from artists. She even said that by adding the words “such as” or “tel que”, in French, something which would bring our system closer to the one in the United States, would allow artists, and people who aspire to become artists, obtain more information.
I then asked her how these artists would be remunerated. I obviously did not get a very convincing answer. I would like to hear your views on this. How can we take away royalties from our creators, while exempting the education sector from having to pay them, and at the same time tell them that they will continue to receive them?
12:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
I'd like to give you an overview of the situation in Canada. There was copyright prior to CCH, and there will be copyright after CCH.
12:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
It is the ruling in the CCH case. That was the case involving CCH and the library of the Law Society of Upper Canada.
That ruling was of critical importance in terms of our approach to exceptions and the way exceptions are handled in Canadian law. I think that is where the difference is. Prior to the CCH decision, exceptions provided for in copyright legislation were interpreted in a restrictive manner. There weren't many in the Act. The principle that lawyers around the country have all been taught--
12:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
-- is that, under the common law, exceptions are interpreted in a restrictive manner. In the final analysis, the exceptions have little impact on the rights of creators and the court's approach was to limit them.
The ruling in the CCH case developed a concept which, as far as I know, exists nowhere else in the world—namely, the rights of users. It didn't say that users are entitled to exceptions, but it did say that where exceptions are provided for in the Act, they should be broadly and liberally interpreted in order to give effect to users' rights.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
That is what distinguishes us from the United States. So, the same legal proceedings would have a different result in the United States, Canada and Quebec.
