Evidence of meeting #4 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I call this meeting to order, this being the fourth meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the study of Canada and new medias.
Our witness this morning is Mr. Jacob Glick, Canada policy counsel, Google Incorporated.
Welcome, Mr. Glick. Please make your presentation.
11:10 a.m.
Jacob Glick Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, members, for having me to your committee today.
I really appreciate the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about the future of Canadian content and the future of content online.
My name is Jacob Glick. I'm Google's Canada policy counsel, based here in Ottawa.
I really only have two points to make in my presentation today, so if you fall asleep or get bored during most of it, you can remember these two points: one, everything is converging onto the public Internet; and two, a corollary of that is that this convergence is good for innovation, consumer choice, and competition.
Let's think about that in its biggest picture.
I should add before I go on that for U.S. security regulations--not security as in the kind of screening you go through at the airport, but securities--I can't make any forward-looking statements. We're in a quiet period corporately right now, so I can't say anything about products that Google is releasing in the future, but you probably weren't going to ask me about that in any event. In case you were, I can't tell you about them.
Let's think about these things. Everything is converging to the public Internet and that convergence is good for innovation, choice, and competition.
I don't want to say this pejoratively, but what does the “old model” of communications that we have known for the last 150 years look like? In particular, what does the old model of mass communications for the last 50 years look like? It is what some people have described as a world of stovepipes, that is, a single network operated by a single entity carrying a single application, more or less.
These are broad generalizations, but the point is still the same. The cable company runs the cable network and carries cable TV, or the phone company operates the phone network and carries telephone communications. This is the world that we had come to expect pre-Internet.
As for the downside of this world--and there are a number of downsides--I'm going to focus my comments primarily in the area of culture, but there are a whole bunch of ways that this model is relevant in the context of innovation and technology as well. In the context of culture, it means there is limited shelf space for content.
For example, in cable television there is a finite number of cable channels that you can have. Even if it is 500, it is still finite. In broadcast television, the available spectrum is limited, so there can be a finite number of broadcast television channels. More importantly. even if there are a finite number of channels, the hours in which people are watching--the prime time, so to speak--is even more limited. All of this produces a limited supply and a limited shelf space, and in that context and with those presuppositions, our existing broadcast regulations have evolved.
They have presupposed that there are not enough hours in the day to show the kind of content that will promote Canada's vision of itself and allow Canadians to tell stories to Canadians. But really what this has meant--not the broadcasting policy, but the limited shelf space more broadly--is more gatekeeping; that is, the broadcast networks or the cable companies or whoever decide which programs go on TV and which personalities go on TV.
There has been an evolution of particular formats. We're used to 22 minutes of television with 8 minutes of commercials. That format is the kind of audiovisual format we have come to expect.
So there is more gatekeeping, and part of this means that fewer voices can be heard, because the kinds of people who will be put on TV are going to be limited simply by the time available to show them and simply by the number of channels available. It often means, unfortunately, less Canadian culture and sometimes more banal culture—and I'm not speaking about all culture—because it has to appeal to the broadest audience possible to get viewers.
So that's the old model of communications.
By the way, a similar type of analysis can be applied to newspapers as well. It's not just television and cable. In the interests of time, I won't get into that, but I would encourage you to talk to somebody like Mathew Ingram, a former columnist for the Globe and Mail who is now a columnist for GigaOm, which is a terrific blog that I hope you all subscribe to. He is based in Toronto and is a deep thinker on many of these issues.
The stovepipes are what we have been used to in mass communications, but the transformation that we've seen with the Internet is what some refer to “the virtuous hourglass”, a term coined by my colleague Rick Whitt in D.C. I'll ask you to imagine all the stovepipes squeezed them together to form what looks like an hourglass. At the top of the hourglass are all of those separate applications that used to be carried over individual stovepipes. TV, cellphone, regular telephone, cable, with all different kinds of content, music, and everything, are now all converged on the public Internet.
In fact, they're all carried over the Internet. You can get your phone service on the Internet. You can have wireless communications effectively over the Internet, because if you have a VoIP phone on your iPod, if you are on a WiFi hotspot, for example, you can effectively get mobile communications over the Internet. You can of course get television signals, all sorts of audiovisual programs, and news--everything.
This is why I say that everything is converging to the Internet. In turn, the Internet is becoming the platform for what all of these pre-existing stovepipes are now carrying. The cable system, for example, is now another conduit for carrying high-speed Internet into your house, and so are the phone and wireless systems. Cellphones are another conduit for carrying high-speed Internet, not just into your house, but everywhere you go.
So you have this virtuous hourglass, which means that all of these previously existing applications that used to be self-contained and available only over the stovepipe, are available anywhere you have Internet access, and they are available from any number of competitive providers. No longer do you have to own a television channel or a newspaper to have your voice heard. If you have a great idea and passion, you can be heard, seen, and read by millions or hundreds of millions of people all around the world.
This is what I sometimes refer to as a giant high-five. It's a giant high-five because it leads to all sorts of cultural innovation in the sense that there are all sorts of new forms of content being created, new voices being heard, and different languages and viewpoints, all of which can be explored because they are not bound by the same limited shelf space of the old model of cultural distribution. In fact, this has led to a renaissance in non-commercial speech.
There are, on a global basis, 22 hours of video uploaded onto YouTube every minute. By any consideration, that is a lot. If you were interested in watching only Canadian content, you could watch Canadian content every day all day long, 24-7, and never see the same thing twice on YouTube.
This is true not just of YouTube, by the way. I'm using that as an example, but it is true of the Internet broadly. If you are interested in Canadian content or in new and different voices, they are all available to you, and available precisely because of the open nature of the Internet, where anybody with a good idea can connect with and reach new audiences. This has led to tremendous choice for consumers, content creators, and producers, a whole ecosystem of creation. It has also led to rapid innovation in platforms, cultural content, and applications.
All of this, by the way, is very good. It's good news for consumers. It's good news for content creators. It's good news for Canadian culture, because more Canadian culture can be created, seen, and enjoyed than ever before and can reach global audiences in a way that was never possible--as well as audiences here at home, I should add.
What are the regulatory implications of this? As I think the committee is already well aware--and this is what animates the study that you have undertaken--the old regulatory presuppositions are challenged and our regulatory models are in flux. In a world of no scarcity, we have to question whether many of our old regulatory instruments still make sense.
In addition, there are new economics of content that also have regulatory implications. If you think about the traditional economics of content, the input costs involved are production, promotion, and distribution. Well, the barriers to production, promotion, and distribution are falling away at a rapid pace.
For production, if you have an HD camera and a MacBook, you can make a professional quality of video. If you have vibrant social networks and you use effective online targeted advertising, you can promote content in ways never used before. For distribution, with access to the open Internet and all of the platforms available on it for distribution, you can distribute your content, again, often for free, and often in new ways to audiences never before reachable.
So what are some of the policy considerations, then, with all of that in mind? I will wrap up soon. I apologize if I'm taking too much time.
First of all, I encourage you not to--and I'll put this in air quotes--“solve problems”. I say that in the sense that some of these things I've described present challenges to many existing constituencies. However, on the whole, they are good for Canadians, good for choice, good for innovation, and good for culture.
But you will be asked, I suspect, as governments will be asked, to roll back the clock on some of this innovation because of challenges that it presents. I would encourage you to ask yourselves when you're being asked those questions whether you're really being asked to solve a real problem or being asked to solve the problem that an existing business model has in the new world.
In addition, I'd encourage you not to, as they say, shoot the messenger. Intermediaries play an important role in this system. The more that intermediaries--ISPs and others--are asked to bear the burden of policing content online, the more we will see innovation and distribution undermined, because they will inevitably take actions that will lessen the vigorous cultural discourse we have.
Finally, this may seem obvious, but I'll say it anyway: avoid the temptation to regulate. Many of these issues actually won't be solved by regulation; they will in fact be hurt by regulation. But when you are legislators, I get it: when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I understand the temptation to do that, but I think the key at the end of the day is protecting and promoting the very openness that is at the heart of the Internet, the very openness that has allowed the Internet to thrive and has allowed culture to thrive online.
That is the end of my prepared remarks. I look forward to our discussion over the next hour and a half. Thank you very much.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Thank you.
With the first question, Mr. Rodriguez, please.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Glick. It's nice to see you here.
You concluded your remarks by saying that we have to protect the openness. I don't disagree in a way, but we also have to protect our culture. That's part of the role we have as a committee and as parliamentarians.
I'll switch to French now. if you want to use the translation device.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
You spoke as if this were all a series of possibilities for the cultural sector, in other words, for our creators and artists. As if the Internet opened up borders, created opportunities and brought only good things. But there are many challenges, as well.
Could you describe one or two of the big challenges or dangers that this poses for Canadian creators and Canadian culture as a whole?
11:25 a.m.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
Thanks very much for the question. I apologize for not being able to understand the question in French, so--
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
11:25 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
11:25 a.m.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
You're right. I presented a very rosy picture. There are challenges that the online universe poses and I'm sure you will hear about many of them in the course of your study.
One of the most vexing challenges has been that of digital piracy. There are no easy answers to digital piracy. The fact is that it is certainly something that creative communities have struggled with and that online service providers like Google have tried to find ways to assist artists in coping with. For example, on YouTube we have one of the best anti-piracy programs in the world in our content ID system to help identify alleged copyright-infringing content and either take it down off YouTube or monetize it.
This is the other part of the answer to your question, which is that I think the other challenge for artists is to put themselves in the mindset of taking advantage of all of the opportunities available to them in the new media. To the extent that they're focused only on the mindsets that the previous regulatory system encouraged, whether it's the subsidy and quota model or one particular form of distribution, one of the biggest challenges is opening up to the possibilities of distribution and opportunity in the world of online media.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
You talked about digital piracy, but was Google not charged with and found guilty of copying books on its site without permission?
11:25 a.m.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
Sir, the Google book search project is one that we're very proud of, for a couple of reasons. One is that we have partnered with authors and publishers all around the world to make their content, with their permission, available to users.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
So why did you have that problem?
A lot of people say you're copying and you're not paying the copyrights. You had to go to court on this. You lost.
11:25 a.m.
Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.
Yes. There are two projects. There's the Google publisher program and then there's the Google library program. Together, they're referred to as the Google book search program. The one you're thinking of is that we made copies of books that were in libraries. We made those searchable, but we never presented the full text of those books unless they were in the public domain.
Some people feel that merely copying a book, even if you don't present the full text of the book, even if you present only a snippet of it, violates copyright. We took a different position. We think that--in the U.S.--it is fair use.
But these were two conflicting legal views and the parties were fighting them out. At the end of the day, we came to a settlement. That settlement, if it is approved by U.S. courts, will result in new opportunities for publishers and for authors to find all sorts of ways to monetize many works, and for some of them, the market has been dead for decades.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Do I have time for a very short question? I can come back.
11:30 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Glick, we are here to study a possible digital strategy, and some people would just like to study new media. I think we need to do a broader study and focus in on a digital policy. That is why we began hearing from witnesses.
I will tell you, right off the bat, that I am a bit uncomfortable with the idea of hearing from a Google representative first. I think we should have started with the bigger picture and then gone into specifics, not the other way around. But here you are, and I am glad to see you. If I understand correctly, your message is do not regulate.
We have heard that a lot from a number of companies that have testified before a number of committees, this one and others. Most of those companies say that we should not make regulations or pass any legislation and that they will handle the situation.
But experience has shown us that when we do not regulate, companies do what they please. For example, Air Canada, which was forced to provide services in both official languages, is the only airline where customers can be served in French. It is impossible to be served in French by any other airline.
There is a feeling of unease, and you are not quite answering our questions on new media. You are boasting about a number of achievements. You are right, I think that Google is an extremely heavy hitter in new media.
In addition, you combine culture and leisure. When we talk about leisure, we talk about people who play Star Wars in their basement, for example, who film themselves and post the video on YouTube, with a fair bit of success from their friends. Culture is something else. It is the work done by professionals, people who try to make a living that way or who do make their living that way and produce recognizable artistic works, whether in visual arts, literature, performing arts or music.
I want to come back to the fact that you copied millions of books. You say you are very proud of it, but the book publishers association in Quebec, the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres, is not so proud of you.
True, you may not have posted them all on the Internet yet, but you can, and you did not pay any royalties. And you were rather cavalier about it, telling people that if they were not happy, all they had to do was step back and take you to court—American courts, of course—which creates a whole other problem.
In addition, the French government finds you a bit intrusive. The Zelnik report even focuses specially on Google and identifies problems with the company. President Nicolas Sarkozy accepted the report's findings.
It talks more about tax leakage, but, in Quebec and Canada, it would be more appropriate to talk about artistic leakage. The report also calls it particularly harmful and says that it alters the playing field. The report is right when it comes to the economy and taxes, but also when it comes to art.
You copied millions of books without authors' permission, and you forced them to take you to court if they were not happy, if they wanted royalties or if they simply did not want you to post the material. They have the right to not want you to digitize books.
You tell us not to make regulations. Why should we listen and do as you suggest? Because you are offering consumers a very large selection? You are. You are giving consumers a very large selection, except that perhaps you should not look at it that way. Here, we are more concerned about artists, their work and respecting their copyrights.