Evidence of meeting #14 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 films.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
In continental Europe, a region we refer to because the people there are closer to our culture, various arrangements have been made by each country. These are essentially arrangements.
Unless I'm mistaken, there's no act that states that a certain class of persons are necessarily the authors. The French arrangement uses a graduated scale. Essentially, it's always the director, always the screenwriter.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
That means that, when Passe-Partout appears on TF1, for example, you receive copyright royalties.
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
That's the case for Cornemuse, yes, among others. I don't believe Passe-Partout is still being broadcast, but Cornemuse has been broadcast on TF1.
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
I have received royalties for—
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
From France, yes.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
And if the program were rebroadcast from a television station?
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
As it appears here, it's zero.
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
No, it's zero.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Ms. Parker also mentioned copyright for screenwriters and directors.
Mr. Côté just said that you do indeed receive royalties when your programs or films are broadcast elsewhere in the world.
Is the situation the same for you?
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Can I start by clarifying something?
In the last round of questioning as well, everyone—and maybe it's the translation—keeps referring to “producers” and scriptwriters. It's “directors”. Can we have that struck from the record and revised?
We are not proposing to share copyright with producers, just to be very clear. We're proposing that it's a co-authorship between writers and directors. The reason is that it is a creative position, an act of creation. Producers—the APFTQ and CMPA—are very concerned about authorship, and I understand that, but they're most concerned about ownership and exploitation of the work.
To get to your question, Madame Lavallée, there are jurisdictions all over the world that recognize authorship of the audiovisual work. This is not a new concept. In France, Spain, Italy, and South America, we have been collecting money through our collection society from these jurisdictions for many years. The law generally states that the writer and the director are the author of the audiovisual work, because authorship is a creative endeavour. The “owner-maker” is the producer.
I think producers are concerned about having all the rights they need to exploit their content, and we can assure them that we will give them everything they need to exploit our work. As authors, we are first owners of copyright. We are prepared to transfer it, and we have a legal document drafted to transfer that ownership to producers right off the top, so that they can have all of the exploitation they need. When they exploit, we get money in our pockets.
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Mr. Côté, how does that work in the United States?
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
In the United States, I believe they're paid at origin. In any case, the producer is the complete owner of the work. Am I mistaken?
Executive Director, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
I don't think so.
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
I admit I don't know much about this question.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
The fact remains that, when Incendies wins an Oscar, it's the director who will climb up on stage.
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
The director will go up on stage, but there are two things. In the United States, when a film wins an Oscar for best film, it's the producer or producers who climb up on stage as the film's producers. However, the author as such, the person who created the work, is the director. The Oscar awards, which are production awards, reward the director with a special award for that category, but his role as director is that of having created the work and of being its author.
Executive Director, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
I'd like to clarify one point to draw a distinction between Canada, Quebec and the United States. The producer will pay the director even before exploitation in order to buy the rights. He pays for them at a high cost because they have value. He acknowledges the value of that copyright. He pays for the rights at a very high cost. Unfortunately, the situation is somewhat different here.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Ultimately, as regards audiovisual, film and cinema, everyone is paid as they work. When the work is completed and ready to be made public, in movies or television, everyone has received their first pay, unlike in the music or literature industries, for example. Am I mistaken?
Executive Director, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
No, and that moreover is what makes us say that this is a big food chain and that it starts from the work. If we starve those who are able to create the work, those who are at the origin of this food chain, it will collapse. That's why we've drawn a parallel with the subprime mortgage crisis because the principle is somewhat the same. Those loans are to the banks what content is to the audiovisual industry. If you destroy or alter the creators' ability to create this Canadian content, the entire food chain of Canadian content is threatened.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
What do you think of the arguments by the producers, who say that this wouldn't apply in certain cases?
President, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec
They don't want to consider who is at the origin of the work. If, for example, we say that a program has a writer, a director and a sound director, someone nevertheless designed it at the outset. The person who conceived the program, the person who designed the program could perhaps claim the rights. They're referring to non-dramatic programs in this case. However, someone has created that work and it wasn't a company who created it. That's not true. These are individuals and perhaps individuals in the production companies could claim authorship of those creations.
Now we can divide and rule, but here we're revising the Copyright Act. Whether programs don't apply to copyright, we'll see later, but we have to know what the copyright is at the outset and to whom it applies.
Conservative
