Good morning. My name is Danièle Simpson. I am president of Copibec and vice-president of the Union des écrivaines et écrivains du Québec. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to present the views of those two associations on the impact of digital development on the book industry.
The Union des écrivaines et écrivains du Québec, UNEQ, has been in existence for 33 years and was recognized in 1990 as the association most representative of literary artists in Quebec under the Act respecting the professional status of artists in the visual arts, arts and crafts and literature, and their contracts with promoters.
Copibec, the Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction des oeuvres littéraires, was created in 1997 by UNEQ and by the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres. It represents more than 850 Quebec publishers and 17,000 authors of books, newspapers and periodicals, including visual artists who publish in them. It also represents the authors and publishers of some 20 countries through bilateral agreements with foreign management companies. Copibec annually redistributes nearly $13 million to rights holders.
The current concern of players in the print world, whether they be authors or publishers, is the reduction, through the expanding notion of fair dealing and the adoption of new exemptions, of the incomes they need to pursue their creative activities, on the one hand, and their distribution activities, on the other. There appears to be some confusion in user's requests between what is accessible and what is free, as though the only way to ensure that those works are accessible is to make access to them free of charge.
This confusion, if adopted by legislators, would have dramatic consequences for the book industry. Imagine, for example, that the reproductions of works in the education industry were considered a matter of fair dealing. That would result in a loss of $9 million for authors and publishers, and place Copibec in a precarious situation as royalties from the education sector represent 70% of its revenue. We would thus run the risk of having no company in Quebec whose primary responsibility is to protect the right of authors and publishers of literary works. As a result, authors and publishers would have to take charge of the matter personally, with the financial burden that would entail.
In its last survey conducted in 2004, the Observatoire de la culture et des communications du Québec showed that [part missing] creative activity was the main source of income for only 9% of writers and that 60% were required to carry on a second occupation to support themselves. In those conditions, how could we justify depriving them of more income?
As for publishers, you must understand that the production costs of a textbook and teacher's guide can reach $1 million. Expanding the notion of fair dealing would risk not only invalidating current agreements that Copibec has signed with the Department of Education, but would also considerably undermine the publishing industry in Quebec, which only has access to a small market, but whose existence is essential to the survival of its culture. It would also hurt all workers in this industry.
Now let us consider the situation, again in education, of these reproduction costs for the Ministère de l'Éducation, des Loisirs et du Sport and for postsecondary institutions. Out of a total budget of $14 billion, the department of education pays $3 million for primary and secondary schools to compensate them for the use of $68 million copies of books, newspaper articles and artistic reviews or works, that is less than $3 per student. Add to that $70,000 for the performance of dramatic works in the schools and $600,000 for the reproduction of musical works, and you get a total of less than 0.0003% of the department's budget. For the colleges, the rate is $10 per full-time student for 21 million copies, and for the universities, $23.50 per student for 86 million copies. As you can see, there is a lot of reproduction of works in education. It represents more than 175 million copies a year, the equivalent of 875,000 200-page books. However, the cost represented by the fair compensation of rights holders is very small.
Once again, in these conditions, how can we justify depriving authors and publishers of necessary income?
The Copyright Act has established a satisfactory balance between the rights of creators and those of users. Switching from the fair dealing model to the fair use model, as some are requesting, would introduce into Canadian law a foreign concept that has far from unanimous support in its country of origin, whereas there are methods in Canada that reflect the values of Canadians. This would cause confusion and uncertainty that would undermine the energies of creators and users alike.
The present Copyright Act is currently designed to protect the public interest by ensuring access to works. Its goal is not to satisfy the personal needs of users that do not wish to pay for the content they are seeking, whereas they do not hesitate to pay for the cost of digital media. It is this spirit of the act that must be retained, particularly since there is no problem of access to works.
The management societies adequately play their role as a single window providing access to a broad range of national and foreign works and exempting uses, by signing a comprehensive licence, from having to request permission from every rights holder to use that person's work. Nor is there any surprise regarding rates since they are negotiated with users in advance. Furthermore, nearly all revenues are then paid to rights holders both here and outside Canada.
The management companies are thus entirely able to deal with the technological changes, but what is particularly true is that there is no justification for making access free of charge exclusively for users by unfairly expropriating from authors the revenues to which their work entitles them.