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.
12:05 p.m.
President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
Yes. When you rely on fair dealing in Canada, there are really very few lawsuits because the exemptions are clear. From the moment they no longer are clear, everything is open to debate.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Does that mean that, if we created a system such as the American system, fair use, there would be a lot of lawsuits?
12:05 p.m.
President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
I can't say that there would be a lot. However, there would be a higher probability of a lot of them.
12:05 p.m.
President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
I'm going to ask Roanie to do it instead.
12:05 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
I think there would indeed be a lot of lawsuits. Until there have been a lot of lawsuits, we won't absolutely know where copyright ends and fair dealing begins. The only way to determine that would be through the courts. That would be their responsibility. That would take tens of years and it will never be finally resolved.
12:05 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
Indeed.
12:05 p.m.
President, Vice-President, Union des écrivaines et écrivains Québécois, Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction
In addition, every time, it's an individual case, a specific issue. We haven't created a framework as a law would. One case is added to another, which is reduced by the next one, and so on. You move forward one step at a time, then you move backward.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I would like you to give me an example that would help me understand to what extent American-style fair use would not of do artists any favours and would require them to file lawsuits. Give me an example, even if it's a fictitious case. I really want to understand.
12:05 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
I mentioned a situation we are currently experiencing. This is not fair use in the American sense. Our framework is that of Canadian fair dealing. Despite the fact that the dealing list is limited in Canada, the concept of equity must be determined on a case-by-case basis.
We are currently conducting a judicial review of a decision by the Copyright Commission. The aim is to define, on the one hand, what private study is and, on the other hand, the term “fair”. For Canadian authors and publishers, this involves $20 million a year. It's the courts that will determine whether the use is fair with regard to that very large amount of money. This kind of complexity and challenge will increase exponentially when all uses of a work, not just the five enumerated in the Canadian act, are subject to a fair dealing analysis.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
You didn't give me an example. I would have liked you to cite an example of an artist who created music that is used by I don't know whom. You didn't cite an example.
April 20th, 2010 / 12:05 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
I'll give you a somewhat more concrete example. For example, in the United States, you may have heard of the Google project to digitize all literary works in the world. They have somewhat limited the agreement they signed, but they want to digitize all literary works. They take the works, they copy them, they digitize them and subsequently make them searchable so that people can find them on the Internet. Google claims that this use—which is an enormous use, as you'll agree with me—is fair in the American fair use sense.
So that will be very far from what people think or could try to put into this fair dealing context.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Perfect. If I correctly understood, in conclusion—
Is it okay?
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
This is a fascinating discussion. If I have to leave early, it's not out of disrespect. It has been just crazy over the last two weeks, and I'm trying to juggle all the balls in the air.
I might not be, but I do claim to be the one member of Parliament who did try to make a living on copyright, and that's why I had to get a suit and become a politician--
12:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
--so I'm very interested in this.
I do receive money, not much, maybe about twelve bucks every three years, for an article I wrote when I was much younger. It's in a textbook. I appreciate that $12. At the same time, I ran a magazine for 12 years and we published a lot of stuff online for free. A lot of schools used it. It was a business model that we were trying to build. So I know both sides.
I saw an amazing article in my local paper the other day by a Cree journalist who had discovered books that had been lost and were basically out of print, books in which early missionaries were writing about the Cree language. Now they're on Google Books. He was totally excited.
I'm interested in the possibility of where we can go with digital culture. I represent a riding where I have many, many isolated communities where people use long-distance education, so I'd like to start off by trying to get a sense of this.
Under the Conservative plan for long-distance education in the last bill, the schools would be under an obligation to destroy the lessons 30 days after marks have gone out. They would have to make all reasonable efforts to basically prevent students from keeping copies of the lessons. Is that fair?
12:10 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
You asked two questions there. The first question is about our digital culture and--
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
No, I'm actually interested in the second question. Is that a fair position for the federal government to take, to tell students that they're not allowed to keep copies after 30 days if they're taking digital online courses?
12:10 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Policy and External Affairs, Access Copyright
When you create an exception where a copyright holder, a user, a rights holder, is not paid for the use of the work, I think you need to be sure that you create parameters on what the use is, because you are encroaching on someone's ability to be compensated for the use of the work. It's a question of whether the 30 days should have been 30 days--should it have been there or not?
But what I would like to point out is that since Bill C-61, the rights holders have gotten together and have filed a tariff that covers exactly the same uses. When you let the market determine how the uses are going to be made, you're going to see that you don't need as many parameters. So--
