Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 4th, 2018

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Right.

You mentioned being contacted directly by authors. Has that happened since then?

[Matt Williams]

The direct contacts I mentioned were usually from educators. If a school wanted to use material in a way that was not covered by the licence they had with the collective, such as using more than a certain percentage of the book, then they could check with us as the rights holder. We would do a transactional permission, a transactional licence.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Katz, you spent your initial time setting out the reasons it doesn't work. You had just begun saying here is maybe something that could work, but we're not quite there yet. I'm interested in the next step in your phrasing of what you think does work.

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

One thing is that I'm very skeptical about the copyright avenue and even more skeptical about collective licensing. I could spend hours on that.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You don't have that. Let's go to the next.

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

There is a huge benefit to the public from creativity. Some of it can go through the market; corporate plays some role in it. That's fine; we already have that.

In Canada, we do a great job at having a lot of funding opportunities from the federal government and the provinces, and we may want to do more of that. We may want to lead in a more sophisticated way than we do. We could expand the funds available for the public lending scheme. These are all decisions, and money doesn't come.... Always, if we increase something, it would have to be at the expense of something else, so these are decisions that, collectively, Parliament would have to make.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Then you're looking at an incentive-based approach rather than a regulatory one.

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

I'm looking at using incentives, subsidies or indirectly.... If, for example, you increase teaching opportunities or many other things, you can increase employment for creators in ways that are supplementary or related to their creative works.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Yurdiga.

[David Yurdiga, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

The first question will go to Mr. Katz.

We heard from a number of witnesses who tried to pinpoint what caused the decline in remuneration to the creators. We heard that the digital platform was a problem, that it created more competition. Some said that the Copyright Act is not efficient enough to protect the artists. We heard about piracy and global competition. We also heard that the creators are signing horrible contracts and that they're not protecting their best interests.

In your opinion, what was the catalyst for the decline in remuneration to the creators?

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

Yesterday I appeared before the INDU committee, and that was the focus of my testimony there.

I'm afraid that there has been a lot of misinformation, and I'd love to spend more time with Matt and Monia, maybe later, because I suspect—at the risk of being condescending—that they are victims of this misinformation.

At least when it comes to higher education, the reality is that universities use very little Canadian literature in the higher education curriculum. In fact, actually I brought with me this book published by Anansi, by Nick Mount, who's an English professor and historian of Canadian literature at U of T, and he notes that at most English departments in most Canadian universities, you can major in English without ever being required to read a single Canadian piece.

By and large, Canadian universities don't teach Canadian literature. Canadians may teach in English departments, and Nick Mount teaches—my son takes his course. He assigns books, and students buy those books, and there are 400 students in the course every year; they sell 400 copies. Again, Professor Mount just told me that one of the authors told me that his course alone was responsible for a second printing of the book.

Actually, teachers love it. When there is content that's available, we have no problem asking students to buy it if it's available and it's reasonably priced. The reason teachers make their course packs and create their own customized teaching is we don't get paid for doing that. It's hard work, and we're not getting paid directly for doing that. If there is already good teaching material available, we would happily assign it. One of the reasons the major educational publishers are so lucrative is that there is this issue that the professors who assign the books are not the ones who pay for them. That's why the prices of textbooks have increased so much over the last four decades. We are lazy. If there is already a book, we're happy to assign it.

The second misinformation, I think, is how Access Copyright used to distribute its money. I suspect that the bulk of the money that has now been lost for Matt and Monia is not the money related to the use of their work, but the other pot of the money, where Access Copyright collected for everything but Access Copyright does not have everything in its repertoire. It collects for everything; it divides some of it according to who owns those rights, but then it keeps this pot of money and distributes it among it members. It has different names—there is the payback scheme for the author, the repertoire, and part for the publisher. This is the amount of money that actually Access Copyright used to distribute to its members, but by definition is not for the use of those members' works but for the use of other copyright owners' works, who are not members of Access Copyright.

I think that is a significant part of what we now have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We'll now move on to Mr. Nantel for seven minutes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to everyone for being here this morning.

I'll begin with you, Mr. Katz. Your remarks are often quite provocative. In particular, I'm looking at your last tweet, dated October 17:

Freedom (e.g. of expression, to tinker) is the baseline. Copyright, which limits this freedom, is the exception and thus should be justified and not extend beyond what's necessary for its purpose.

Could you please detail what you meant?

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

Yes. You're referring to my tweet.

The baseline in our democratic society is freedom; it's a principle of our liberal society. People are free to do whatever they like, unless there is valid law that prevents them from doing that. Some freedoms are also constitutionally entrenched, such as freedom of expression. Copyright is a limitation of freedom of expression.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

How's that?

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

Let me explain. When we give someone an exclusive right over a work, that means we prevent other people from doing certain things with that work. If Matt has copyright in a work and I want to build on that work, copyright creates some limitation of my ability to use Matt's work in my own work.

The Supreme Court of Canada's definition of what constitutes freedom of expression includes not only the freedom to express oneself, but also the freedom to receive and access information created by others. Again, by giving exclusive rights and restricting the supply, copyright, by definition and design, restricts our ability to access and receive information.

This does not mean that it's not a good idea or that it's unconstitutional—that's only step one in our constitutional analysis—but it means that it has to be justified. It's okay to have some restrictions if we have valid reasons and if we do it in a proportionate way such that we don't restrict more than necessary, and so on.

We could have copyright that is completely consistent with our freedom of expression. It does impose some limitation on our ability to express ourselves and on the ability to access the expression of others, but if we do it for good, legitimate purposes and we do it proportionately, such that we don't restrict more than necessary, that's totally fine. We have all sorts of restrictions that are—

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

This is why you are under the impression that the fair education exception should be maintained and should be used as broadly as it is, and that we should potentially ask the state or

Canadians to provide compensation for lost income by offering support for creators rather than increase fees for basic subjects in education.

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

You'd have to repeat the last—

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Absolutely. I'm inconsistent with my English and my French.

That's what enables you to say that, in your view, the exception applicable to the education sector must be maintained, and we must ask the government or citizens to provide compensation for the poor little creators who are being robbed by universities.

[Prof. Ariel Katz]

I would not agree that creators are being robbed by universities. Copyright has always been a limited right; it's not an absolute right to control every aspect of every use of a work. It has always been a limited right that gives the owners of copyright certain limited rights. It also defines the rights of users.

A robust fair dealing is part of the guarantees. If you want to ensure that copyright is constitutionally valid—that it is a valid limitation on freedom of expression—a robust fair dealing must be part of your law.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Williams and Ms. Mazigh, you said you promoted your novels and short stories at several fairs. Based on your respective experience as publisher and author, do you feel that copyright is more contemporary, more modern and more up to date in other countries? For example, have you received bigger payments for the use or sale of your works in countries other than Canada?

[Monia Mazigh]

Do you want me to answer?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Of course, since you were there?

[Monia Mazigh]

First of all, I can't offer a full answer because I don't receive royalties from other countries. Canada is the only country I receive them from. Although my books are sold elsewhere, that's always done through my publisher. He's the one who collects royalties and passes them on to me.

The amounts involved here are negligible. However, every time we go to a fair, we sell a few tens of copies, which results in a very small amount of royalties.

I would like to respond briefly to what Mr. Katz said earlier. I don't agree with his ideas. I'm a minor author; I don't belong to the community of publishers such as Anansi. Consequently, I can't speak on their behalf. Mr. Williams would definitely have more to say about that than I. The fact remains that Anansi is an independent publishing company, not a multinational that makes billions of dollars or represents authors who sell millions of books.

I want to repeat that I agree the Canadian government should review funding in the form of subsidies. However, it should also review the Copyright Act. The world is changing, there are many authors, and their copyright has been virtually confiscated, regardless of whether their books are relatively unknown or well known and taught in the universities. How can copyright be protected and improved? That, I think, is the main question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Mr. Hogg is next, for seven minutes, please.