Evidence of meeting #6 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.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Pardon me for interrupting you, but my time is limited.
Earlier you said that the role of a copyright act was also to agree on compensation for those people.
5:05 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
Yes.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
The minister told the CBC that Bill C-32 was not designed to compensate artists, but rather to protect their works so that they are not stolen. You're saying that the objective is to compensate artists.
5:05 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
Yes. However, if those works are "stolen", the authors are definitely not being compensated—
5:05 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
Necessarily.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
All right.
So you disagree with the minister when he says that the object is not to compensate them.
5:05 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
I believe I'm obliged to do so.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Clearly, Bill C-32 strips artists of three major sources of compensation to which they long had access.
5:05 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
The exemptions and certain regimes provided for under the act mean that the power relationship between authors and disseminators, potentially public ones, is largely reversed.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
5:05 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
From that standpoint, yes, but allow me to tell you that the use of the word "balance" is a problem. Balance is a virtue; it is the image of justice. The problem is that that image leads to a zero sum game. In this situation, if either of the two parties wins, the other loses. That logic leads to a dead end. In my view, it would be important not to put the emphasis on that term and not to bandy it about. I'm afraid it will lock us in a world that we'll be unable to escape and that it will prevent us from negotiating acceptable conditions.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
Thank you very much.
Mr. Angus, go ahead, please, for seven minutes.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for coming.
Mr. Bloom, I'd like to start with you with regard to clarification of language. I was noticing in proposed section 29.22 the words “private purposes” and “use” are interchangeable, and I find that confusing. If I have a private use and I want to make a copy, that would be my right under this bill. It's for private use. For a private purpose, I might want to make 10 copies as Christmas presents for my family. That would still be a purpose. Are those words interchangeable or should they be clarified?
5:10 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Legislation Committee (Technical), Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
In the submission we will be furnishing to the officials, we have expressed our concern about precisely that point. It comes up in a number of sections. There is “private”. There is “non-commercial”. There is “non-profit”. These terms are used throughout the legislation, and the courts would give them separate meaning because separate words are being used. We've questioned whether the appropriate words have been used and whether there needs to be some sort of definition, and we've set that out in our submission about a number of the sections in the legislation.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I'd like to ask you about proposed section 29.21, on the user-generated content, because one of the problems we're facing with this bill, or with the need for legislation, is that everybody in some way is making user-generated content today. We hear from certain stakeholders, “We don't want to go after kids” and “We don't want to go after people who are putting up baby videos”, but that's exactly who has been targeted.
We have the example of Prince going after the mother who showed her kid dancing, and they used notice and takedown to take down a video. Is there a possibility, for user-generated content, to clarify the difference between personal creative use and works that would contradict the rights that exist under the Berne three-step test? Could we say you can post a mash-up video as long as it does not contravene the Berne three-step test? Would that be enough to ensure that Mack trucks are not being driven through this legislation?
5:10 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Legislation Committee (Technical), Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
I don't think you could use that language; it wouldn't be effective. But you could certainly craft language that would much more focus the UGC section. If that's to be done, let's get the right language. But it could be done, yes.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Has your committee...? I'm only reading your table of contents here—
December 6th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Legislation Committee (Technical), Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
We're not proposing issues that would be policy issues; we're pointing out where the existing language, which is based on a policy intent, has perhaps fallen somewhat short of the policy intent, or where there are issues of clarity, and you've hit on one of them, which is this non-commercial use.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Madame Gendreau, I'm interested in the issue of fair dealing. You say it's not needed. One of the issues in terms of the legislation is that it's been defined under the CCH decision at the Supreme Court level, so like it or not, it's in the room and it's not going away.
Now, the Copyright Board did an analysis of the tariffs on JK to 12, based on the CCH decision. Out of the billion copies or whatever that are made, they identified 280 million that educational institutions are obligated to pay for.
Would that be in keeping with our international obligations?
5:10 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
I think the Copyright Board decision was based on the concept of fair dealing for the purpose of research. In that perspective, I don't think we can assume that a similar approach, a similar outcome, would derive from an analysis based on fair dealing for the purpose of education. I think this is one important consideration we have as a distinction with this new fair dealing provision.
On the other hand, I must say I'm not against all fair dealing. I think the fair dealing purposes we have now are perfectly acceptable. Indeed, I find fair dealing for the purpose of parody or satire, which is being added by the bill, to be a perfectly commendable purpose for fair dealing.
What I'm saying is that it is difficult to say 100% that with a new, added purpose in the act, the Copyright Board will necessarily come up with the same conclusion it did with respect to fair dealing for the purpose of research.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Again, I'm not trying to put myself in the mind of a Conservative—God knows what goes on in their heads on any given issue--but the fact that the Copyright Board established the tariff based on the CCH decision, which identified education, clearly.... Now the ministers of education are challenging that, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court, and we're in this open battleground. The Copyright Board was ready to accept education, and the ministers are fighting this, so would it not be prudent to put clarifying language into legislation so we're not having to go back to the courts again and again to define this?
It was defined by the Copyright Board. Can we not put that in legislation and then move on?
5:15 p.m.
President, Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI Canada)
I think that anything to clarify the bill would always be welcome.
But the issue you are raising is precisely one that shows the need for clarification. Within education, you also have the context of research. You do research when you do education; therefore, it makes sense that there should be a tariff that looks at the context of research within the area of education.
Research in itself is not the only point of education. I think this is why adding the purpose of education to fair dealing can open up something different from what has already been decided by the Copyright Board when it looked at its use of the materials in light of fair dealing for the purpose of research.
I think that's one of the problems.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Bloom, in the quick time I have left, the question on clarity on education is a concern for some rights holders. In a sense, everything could be education, or should education be defined as educational institutions, i.e. K to 12, post-secondary, where we identify that people are in courses and classes, as opposed to Shoppers Drug Mart employees getting the data for training and all kinds of copies are being made.
Do we need to clarify the language on what would be an educational use?
5:15 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Legislation Committee (Technical), Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
I can say our submission does refer to a specific, very recent Federal Court decision that looked at the words “educational textbook” and did conclude that “educational textbook” is not confined to something that is used in a structured educational environment.
So if the policy intent here is that there be a structured educational context for education, you may wish to look at the decision in the Federal Court and supplement the language in the bill.