Evidence of meeting #8 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 copyright.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Roanie Levy  General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
Danièle Simpson  President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
Glenn Rollans  Partner, Lone Pine Publishing
Marie-Louise Nadeau  Director, Playright, Société québécoise des auteurs dramatiques
André Cornellier  Co-Chair, Chief Executive Officer of La Maison de l'image et de la photographie, Canadian Photographers Coalition

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Okay. Yes. So on telling students that they can't keep copies after 30 days, could we get around that with something else?

April 20th, 2010 / 12:10 p.m.

General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright

Roanie Levy

Well, the market has been able to put in place a licence that doesn't require that. The market can do that. Rights holders can choose how they want to license their work. The point is that when rights holders are given the opportunity to put business models in place, they tend to meet the user needs in a more efficient way and are able to adapt as the user needs adapt as well.

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Okay. I don't want to sound gruff here, but this guy is tough; I have five minutes and I have so many things to ask because I really want to clarify this.

What interests me.... Madam Simpson, you said that fair dealing was a foreign concept in Canada, but it has been defined by the Supreme Court--

12:10 p.m.

President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction

Danièle Simpson

Not fair dealing--fair use.

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

I'm sorry. I heard it through the translation.

12:10 p.m.

President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

But it was defined by the Supreme Court, so it's the elephant in the room that we have to deal with. These are rights that exist. So how do we go about...? This is the point of this discussion: how do we move forward?

If we have a levy in place.... I think a levy is a great idea. My colleagues call it a tax, but I think a levy is a reasonable way that artists get paid. But if we have a levy, do we then need the exhaustive list? For example, in 1997 the Copyright Act decided that it was legal to take an easel and a blackboard and make a quote.

Do we need to enforce that level of enforceability of artists' rights if we're going to have a levy? It seems to me that we either go one way or the other. We either go after everything that's happening in the classroom and tick it off, or we say, “Here's a levy, students, you use it”.

12:15 p.m.

Partner, Lone Pine Publishing

Glenn Rollans

On the topic of levies or licence fees, there have been some numbers that have gone around. Roanie mentioned $20 million a year in the K to 12 sector. In Quebec it's $9 million a year.

The overall educational resources market in Canada is about $400 million a year and that is already a stressed industry. So levies, for me, are not the solution for a working information marketplace. If you have something that compensates use on a use-by-use basis, or under a licence, a subscription, or the sale of a product, you have something that scales to the level of the activity. If it's a levy that's somehow independent of that, a levy on devices, for example, you can end up with--

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Okay, so maybe I got the word wrong. Let's say Access Copyright--you guys charge a tariff per student, so--

12:15 p.m.

Partner, Lone Pine Publishing

Glenn Rollans

Yes, and so--

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

--if you have that, shouldn't the class be able to then use...?

12:15 p.m.

Partner, Lone Pine Publishing

Glenn Rollans

Well, under agreed terms, they should be able to do whatever they're paying for.

If a levy of $20 million.... Or if under expanded fair dealing the levy went to zero, or the tariff went to zero, does that replace the activity that's happening now in a $400-million marketplace? I don't think it will, so I think both sides lose in that arrangement. The people who are doing production now aren't going to do it anymore because they can't get paid for it, and you turn your teachers into part-time resource builders or scavengers of existing resources that are out there and not now restricted--

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Sorry, but I have one last question, and then--

12:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger

One minute, Charlie.

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Here's also my concern, though, in terms of looking at this, because my colleague said we're dealing with acquired rights versus the privilege to use that right. But you're also competing against a phenomenal amount of product that is now being put out there.

As I said, my magazine posted stuff. When I ran a magazine, the going fee for a photograph was $140 if I wanted to use it, whether it was a good photograph or not. Now there's flickr. Flickr has posted millions of photos from people who don't want compensation. If I were running a magazine now, I could get a lot of copies, a lot of photographs, for free, unless I was dealing with a heavy-duty professional who I was paying.

Is that not part of the issue? We're dealing with people posting academic articles. They're putting up research. They're giving it out into a general comment. How do we then maintain a market so that we can continue to create?

12:15 p.m.

General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright

Roanie Levy

Along that line, I think that because some people find value in their business models to giving something away for free, it's not that everybody needs to give everything away for free. I think there is a difference--

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

No, but I'm saying it devalues the price, right?

12:15 p.m.

General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright

Roanie Levy

Right, but the market will sort that out, and business models--

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Educators can use free stuff as opposed to paying, so--

12:15 p.m.

General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright

Roanie Levy

And that's part of.... That's fine. That's not the problem. It doesn't mean because educators can use free stuff that everything they use should be free. I think that's a big difference.

I would just like to point out--

12:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger

Make it very short, please.

12:15 p.m.

General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright

Roanie Levy

Yes. I need two points of clarification.

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

See, it's such a big discussion--

12:15 p.m.

General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright

Roanie Levy

Yes. First, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the CCH case, did not create a fair use. It did not do that. It was very specific. It said that you still had to meet one of the permitted purposes. So it did not create fair use. I think that needs to be clear--

12:15 p.m.

NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

No, but it recognized it as a definable user...it said that fair dealing...[Inaudible--Editor].