Good morning.
The Société québécoise des auteurs dramatiques was founded in order to manage a financial agreement entered into by the Ministère de l'Éducation, des Loisirs et du Sport, MELS, previously the MEQ, on copyright payments owed for theatre plays performed by students in Quebec schools. That agreement, in addition to enabling SOCAN to pay royalties mainly to authors from Quebec, but also from Canada and other countries, sets out guidelines for the use of dramatic stage works and their transmission in any medium whatever.
We have the management authorizations of 250 Quebec and Canadian playwrights for, among other things, school performance rights, reprography rights and telecommunications and digital rights. We also have a management agreement with COPIBEC for copies of theatre plays for study purposes and of theatre plays for study and rehearsal purposes in both paper and digital formats.
Before we signed our agreements with MELS, that is prior to 1994, and with COPIBEC during the 2000s, there were simply few or no royalties for dramatic authors in the education sector. Currently, however, the application of fair dealing exemptions, including under section 29.5 of the Copyright Act, deprived dramatic authors of plays staged in Quebec schools of 55% of their potential income.
Between the 2006 and 2009 school years, 887 of 1,950 performances in Quebec schools, or 45%, owed copyright royalties. That's a lot when you know that a playwright in Quebec earns an average of $5,000 in copyright royalties a year. It's clear to us—and the figures speak for themselves—that playwrights are already contributing a lot to fair dealing. We are convinced that expanding fair dealing, in addition to causing confusion among some users already confused about existing exemptions, would be dramatic—pardon the pun—for authors and our small organization dedicated to defending their rights.
We do not have the financial or human resources necessary to prove, on a case-by-case basis, that such and such an organization erred or misinterpreted fair dealing. In the area of digital rights, we currently authorize users to record performances for archival purposes. We authorize, on request, the distribution of excerpts of two or three minutes on the Internet, provided the user undertakes to respect the work distributed.
But how to retain current control over the transmission of dramatic works via the Internet if fair dealing is further expanded? How can we justify to playwrights a decline in their rights that results in a further loss of income and control over the distribution of their works, both on stage and via the Internet? Don't make cuts to what has been acquired over the years. The system works well. It's a matter of survival for us and respect for the works of playwrights.
Thank you.