Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, my colleague, Albert Cloutier, and I are delighted to be here again to further our discussion on copyright.
Last week, we spoke about the Copyright Act and its primary guiding principles. We also spoke about the major international conventions governing copyright that form a backdrop to the Act.
It is our intention this afternoon to provide you with a brief overview of the various revisions of the Copyright Act.
If you turn to page 2 of the presentation that has been circulated, you will see that the first major review of the Copyright Act took place in 1988. This heralded the granting of new rights, a move towards collective rights management, and the establishment of the Copyright Board.
On the subject of new rights, although authors already held moral rights prior to the 1988 review, the update clarified the scope of these rights and strengthened the avenues of recourse open to rights holders in case of infringement.
It is important to understand that, prior to 1988, computer programs were not officially covered by the Copyright Act. However, it became clear that computer programs were comparable to literary works and, therefore, merited protection under the Copyright Act. Protection of computer programs was consequently enshrined in the 1988 review.
The review also encouraged collective rights management. Several measures to allow not-for-profit associations to represent several authors or producers were introduced with a view to promoting collective rights management over individual rights management.
The review also led to the establishment of the Copyright Board. Since 1988, the Board has been responsible for setting the royalties to be paid by users seeking to use works protected by the Copyright Act.
Page 3 provides an overview of another major review of the Copyright Act. It focused on three main areas.
Firstly, it introduced new rights for performers and producers of sound recordings, while simultaneously providing some exceptions for educational establishments, museums, archives and libraries.
Allow me to provide you with an example of the new rights that were granted to producers and performers. Prior to 1997, a performer whose work was played in a public place or on radio was not compensated for this use of their material, as it was deemed to be a question of statutory law not covered by the Copyright Act.
Since 1997, performers and producers of sound recordings have had the right to be remunerated each time their song is played in public, be it on an airplane, in a shopping centre or any other public place, such as, for example, here in this room. Performers and producers must now be paid for any use of their sound recordings or performances.
As regards exceptions, I explained last week that the Copyright Act provides authors and artists with either sole rights or rights to remuneration. Sole rights are considered the Cadillac of rights in copyright circles, while the right to remuneration provides for the rights holder to be paid, but does not allow him to deny consent for his work to be used.
In 1997, exceptions were introduced to allow certain users such as schools, researchers, museums and archives to make use of protected works. While it is not mandatory, if they do opt to use these works, they are bound to respect certain conditions. They do not, however, have to seek the author or artist's permission and, in some instances, are exempt from paying royalties.
A second principal focus of the 1997 review was the private copying regime. The private copying regime creates an exception allowing any individual to reproduce, for personal use, a musical work, a sound recording, or an artist's performance of a musical work. In tandem with this exception, the 1997 review also provided for a compensation regime to provide authors, producers of sound recordings, and performers whose performances are fixed in sound recordings to receive royalties for private copying.
Section 92 is another important section in the Copyright Act. It required the government to report to both the House of Commons and the Senate on how the act was operating. Under the provisions of section 92, the government had to report to both Houses in 2002. We will come back to this a little later.
Lastly, 1997 was also the year in which Canada signed the two WIPO Internet treaties, another matter that we will return to later. One of the treaties deals with protection for authors, and the other with protection for producers of sound recordings and artists whose performances are fixed in sound recordings. In signing these treaties, Canada officially recognized the underlying principles of these two international agreements. It is important to draw a distinction between signing and ratifying. Ratification is the stage following the implementation of a treaty.