Evidence of meeting #118 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was back.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Is there a movement out there to go for less? Are there more artists who are saying that no, 25—
Artist, As an Individual
I have never discussed this with any other artists. My colleague Jim Vallance and I have discussed it, but I'm not sure.... This is perhaps where Daniel could step in and have a voice about this.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
I'm sorry. I'm just going to jump in to warn you that you have about half a minute. Maybe somebody else will pick that up.
Prof. Daniel J. Gervais
There are very few countries that have reversions. There are really very few precedents, but the question is exactly your question: Where is the sweet spot? If you go too low, then you will get push-back saying that it's not enough. It really comes to down to a compromise, so there is no perfect....
It's like the term of a copyright or a patent. There's no perfect answer. You pick a number that seems to be in the right sweet spot, and 25 is I think a good number. It could be 20. It could be 30. It's somewhere in that range, I would argue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Perfect. Thank you very much.
On that note, we will go to Mr. Yurdiga, please.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome to our committee. It's a first time for me, too, so I'm very excited to have you here.
We were talking about changing some of the wording in the document, regarding copyright from after death to—what did you call it?—assignment. Is there any push-back from the publishers? Obviously their medium is vast. A lot of Internet providers are providing songs that are illegally obtained, so publishers need to be protected in some manner. Do you think publishers will push back really hard if we say 20 years? What's the magic number they'll be happy with, in your opinion?
Artist, As an Individual
I'm pretty sure that if you spoke to any publisher, they would be quite happy to leave it the way it is. Why would anybody want to relinquish control to somebody else? In a publisher's world, they would want to amass as much as possible for as long as possible so they could sell their company for as much as possible.
The question I'm here just to ask everybody is whether that is fair. Is it fair to the people who are...? Publishers don't create work. They don't create compositions. They don't create books. They're just literally the medium to help push it out there. I have my doubts as to whether they're as effective as they were 20 years ago; the Internet has changed that so much. They're probably facing the same dilemma that everybody else is: How we are going to go forward?
I would argue they would probably want it to be as high as possible, judging from the experiences I've had with publishers.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you.
You know, in a business world, even in agriculture, it's usually a 20-year number for a return on your investment.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
In other industries, depending on what they are, usually the only time we see a 25-year thing is with mortgages, so I personally think that number is high. It just seems that 25 years...and after that—
Artist, As an Individual
Actually, the idea of a house is a good parallel, I think, because it's something you build upon. Copyright and ownership of copyright is something you'd build upon as an artist in your own catalogue, so I think your analogy is quite good.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
My next question is to Mr. Gervais.
From your perspective, will changing it from 25 years after death make a big difference? What does it really mean to the artist? What will they get in return? It's already been published and it's out there, so what does getting the copyright mean to them? What's the advantage?
Prof. Daniel J. Gervais
Thank you, Mr. Yurdiga. That's a fantastic question, because what happens to a copyright that's transferred for an extremely long period of time, such as under the current system in Canada, is that the publisher very often will see these as back catalogue works that just keep producing a little bit of revenue each year, which they add to their other revenue. If an artist gets the rights back, they have a huge incentive to remarket and release new things with the work that they produced 25 years ago or 20 years ago.
One fact that we see in the U.S. is that even foreign authors can get their rights back in the U.S. It's mostly U.S. authors who are using the system because they are more familiar with their own, so I think what would happen in Canada is you'd see many Canadian artists getting their rights back and then pushing more Canadian content, more Canadian music, more of other types of Canadian copyrighted material.
The incentive of the proposition is completely different from the case of a publisher who owns this older back catalogue, which in some cases they have really very little incentive to use at all, and an artist who gets his rights back will say, “Now I have a chance to make it again with this good content that I produced a long time ago.” I think it's a win-win.
As Mr. Adams said, there's no cost to the taxpayer, which I think is also useful.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Thank you for coming and testifying before the committee, Mr. Adams. Needless to say, it's an honour to have you here. You're a Canadian icon.
I would like to ask you what disadvantages you or your peers have seen with this “25 years after death” part of our copyright law. If they were to change it to 25 years after assignment, what advantages would you or your peers see—
Artist, As an Individual
Well, I haven't died yet, so I don't know the advantages.
Liberal
Artist, As an Individual
Well, for those who have passed away, if they are actually getting them back, perhaps it would help their families, their children. That's one side of it, I suppose. Personally, I don't know that I've had.... I'm just here because I want to get there before I die. I'd like to see this happen before I die. I think that answers the question.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Well, Mr. Gervais mentioned that one of the reasons to have copyright law is to also nurture creativity for those who aspire to become artists and for those who already are. How has this prevented you from being even more creative? What more could you have given to the music industry had it...?