Thank you, Madam Chair.
Out of respect for everyone, I will use a timer so that I don't go over the time I have.
Good morning. My name is Guillaume Déziel. I must say that I am not a lobbyist. If I were one, I would be a lobbyist for culture.
Today, I was invited to present some parameters related to remuneration issues in the digital era.
I will start by explaining what Creative Commons licences are. I will then talk about how those licences can be used and integrated into a subsidy mechanism for culture. In closing, I will make a suggestion to involve Internet service providers in the monetization of our culture.
The term of copyright varies from 50 to 70 years, depending on the country. After that period, the works are added to the public domain. In the digital age, the public domain is a virtual place where the use of works is no longer restricted by law.
Creative Commons licences allow creators to voluntarily divest themselves of some of their rights during their lifetime. It is important to note that, in the case of copyright, we are talking about “all rights reserved”, while in the case of Creative Commons licences, some rights are reserved.
Creative Commons licences are in line with the online reality, this ecosystem where copying is synonymous with sharing. This is what has changed a lot since the invention of the Gutenberg printing press, where copying was not necessarily associated with the notion of sharing.
All Creative Commons licences allow sharing, in all instances. Some of them also allow adaptation or remixing. They allow some creators to create new works from existing works. They promote the flow of culture, which is perfectly in line with the new digital reality.
Finally, Creative Commons licences allow authors, if they so wish, to retain the exclusivity of the commercial exploitation of the uses of their works or cultural products. To create a Creative Commons licence, an online tool similar to a digital lawyer can be used. After answering four simple questions, you can choose the licence of your choice. The tool can be found at creativecommons.org/choose.
I would now like to talk about the idea of providing grants according to the licence. In order to stimulate the adoption and use of Creative Commons licences by creators and producers, we could think about providing creation grants and production support subsidies, depending on the licence issued for making the cultural product available. I could use the word “product”, although creators will not like it very much. So let's call it a “cultural product”.
A permissive licence, such as a Creative Commons licence that allows, during the creator’s or producer’s lifetime, the work to be adapted, remixed or shared for commercial or non-commercial purposes, would allow the work to receive greater financial support, as authors would contribute more during their lifetime to the vitality of culture and the health of the public domain.
On the other hand, a restrictive licence, or “all rights reserved” licence, would result in a lower grant, because creators would voluntarily limit the circulation of their works to control monetization and choose the channels through which the works would be exploited.
It is therefore possible to consider different levels of grants depending on different types of licences. The document I have sent you contains a table that may give you some ideas.
At the end of my presentation, I will make a recommendation on that.
Finally, to link all this to monetization, I invite you to look at the different combinations of licences, which range from the most restrictive to the most permissive. These are all the “Fifty Shades of Grey” of copyright. Copyright is not all black or white. In this case, Creative Commons licences allow authors, composers, creators and producers to determine how to use works freely from now on.
I would like to conclude by talking about a social contract to be established between the public, that is, amateurs and consumers of culture—once again, I use the word “consumers” with great caution—Internet service providers and creators, in order to be in line with the very nature of the web that I mentioned earlier.
As an aside, let me say that the web was invented to copy information and save it in order to fight nuclear attacks. This is the ecosystem in which we live.
In fact, the web is an ecosystem where sharing is its very essence. All Creative Commons licences allow the sharing of works associated with them, given that the web is an ecosystem that makes this possible. Such sharing is clearly an advantage for the community, which has an immediate right of access to culture, which can be enhanced without necessarily going through a transactional level, in some cases.
It is good to give the community an advantage, but the community now consumes culture through Internet service providers. This is then implicitly an advantage for Internet service providers. They earn their living by transporting the culture from point A to point B in our community. Now, the complete or partial provision of a work's rights allows the community to access its culture freely, well before the time a work becomes part of or is added to the public domain. A benefit like that, for the community, is also a benefit for Internet service providers, who invariably monetize our cultural consumption.
As a result of grants and subsidies, taxpayers' money contributes to creating culture. Support for cultural creation by the public should be matched by requirements, such as guaranteeing the community—the public—better access to its own culture, greater malleability of that culture and the possibility of sharing that culture without breaking copyright. In its current form, the copyright is very restrictive. Such monetization of the non-commercial uses of our culture could be encouraged by Internet service providers.
In this case, we could imagine consumers contributing to the sharing of culture on a voluntary basis by adding one dollar to their monthly Internet bill. The Internet service provider could do the same by adding another dollar. This would break the age-old logic that Canadians do not want an additional tax. Those who wish to encourage culture could do so voluntarily, and political parties that are constantly grappling with this sensitive issue could off-load it.
Finally, my first recommendation to Canadian Heritage is that the department recognize the existence of Creative Commons licences as a positive contribution to our cultural vitality and, furthermore, that it ensure that the legislation governing those licences, which can be consulted at the Internet address provided earlier, is in compliance with the Canadian Copyright Act.
Second, we recommend that, in the short term, the department develop subsidy programs for works and productions that are subject to a Creative Commons licence. In the medium term, we recommend that it encourage those licences by increasing grants for works subject to a Creative Commons licence and decreasing grants for works and productions that are “all rights reserved”.
We believe that people who have received government money to create a work can, of course, keep all the related rights, but they also have a responsibility to monetize them. If they don't, they would not be able to participate in the social contract of our third recommendation.
The social contract seeks to cover all non-commercial uses promoted by Creative Commons licences. Those uses could be covered by collective compensation in subsidy programs and by copyright collectives, which would take advantage of the much-touted dollar voluntarily agreed to by the consumer and matched by the dollar from the Internet service provider.
As you will see, this is all similar to the good old Canada Media Fund.
Thank you.