Evidence of meeting #139 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 system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to inform you that I will share my time with Mr. Boissonnault.
My question is for you, Mr. Castanié.
During your testimony, you mentioned five remuneration models. You also talked about the works of illustrators that appear on websites. In today's digital era, what can the federal government do to ensure that artists and creators receive fair remuneration?
5:15 p.m.
President, Illustration Québec
It's certainly one of the issues that your committee needs to consider. It's a difficult question. We are wondering how we could pay for the use of images on the Internet. I developed my thinking on this aspect in the form of an open-ended question precisely because I didn't have a ready-made answer to these real and quite important issues. Images are used, copied and distributed, yet no remuneration is associated with them.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Have you done anything in the past to improve the situation?
5:15 p.m.
President, Illustration Québec
No, our association has done nothing. I don't have the exact reference, but I know there are systems that would act as a kind of key to identify the image of one of our creations and find it on the Internet. Since the Web is extremely vast, it is one of our major challenges.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Do you think the situation has improved in the past five years, or has it gotten worse?
5:15 p.m.
President, Illustration Québec
Digital technology has completely changed our practices. This has presented some advantages, such as allowing us, as self-employed workers, to communicate more quickly, and it has made it much easier for us to create at various stages. However, digital technology has also created uncertainty. The great difficulty, indeed, is to adapt to the new developments we are experiencing on a daily basis at an accelerated pace.
An example I can give is the creation of an illustration for the cover of a novel. The remuneration for this type of contract has always been $800 to $1,000; there is a licence for the book. When digital technology arrived, books began to be published in PDF or other electronic formats, without changing the remuneration for the book cover. No additional licences were granted, on the grounds that, according to the publishers, the market for these new formats was in its infancy and so there was no need to change the remuneration arrangements. However, in recent years, we've seen that sales of books in digital format can be good and, so, the focus needs to be adjusted.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Thank you very much.
I will give the rest of my time to my colleague.
5:15 p.m.
Randy Boissonnault Edmonton Centre, Lib.
Thank you very much, dear colleague.
Mr. Castanié, it is clear that there are more artists in Quebec because of the tax treatment they receive. Thank you for sharing all your thoughts and ideas on this.
Mr. Metcalfe, Ms. McCaffrey, I'm trying to understand a little more about the public lending right. I just want to be straight up. Who loses and who wins in that model? Is it that everybody gives a bit and everybody comes out feeling like they traded off but they also benefited, and it makes the system more efficient? I'd like to know that.
As we've been on this study for several months, I've found that there are some examples where artists' rights—we need to respect them—can also prevent a work from being shared more broadly in other languages. If we take, for example, a work of art that's originally in French or a work of art that's originally in English, and you want to translate that, you have to get everybody's permission. You have to get everybody's sign-off to simply take what's there in the first language and add another language to it—even if you did subtitles, especially if you did a voice-over. I find this very interesting because it's a bilingual country. If we want to have educational materials from coast to coast to coast, it even makes it difficult for museums to share the information with a broader public unless we can track down all of those artists and get their sign-offs. I find that curious.
How does the public lending right help in your space? What do we need to be mindful of to consider it in the review?
5:20 p.m.
Director and Curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, and President, Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization
Well, I think we need to distinguish between kinds of uses. One is the kind of use where it's appropriate to have a one-on-one contract with the creator. So, for example, if we're doing an exhibition of an artist's work, a solo exhibition, then that's something that should be worked out between the museum and the artist. That's already built into our operating system.
For usages like showing a work online, for example, as part of our collection, let's say in a low-resolution image, there is an undue administrative burden if we have to get permission from every artist. If there's a system that centralizes that, and that artists would register for and be recompensed for, and with certain controls on it—as I said, a low-resolution image so it can't be reproduced in a money-making way—then something like a public lending right model would mean that the museum would not have to undergo a lot of administrative work, but the artist would get recompense for the appearance of their work in a public medium.
5:20 p.m.
Edmonton Centre, Lib.
To either of you, in your opinion, what led 33 countries—or 20 countries after us, because we were 13th—to adopt the model? What is it about the model that is so appealing? Are you aware of any parts of the world where this is baked into copyright and artist protection?
5:20 p.m.
Director and Curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, and President, Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization
The advantages are what I said in my presentation, which is that it minimizes the transactional costs and that it recognizes the value to the public of what writers do. In line with what our other presenter has said, the value of cultural work often goes beyond what creators are paid for when it's first created.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Quite honestly, I never thought about this aspect of the art community or the performances. I always think about television, radio and that type of thing. We talked a lot about remuneration and about copyright, but there hasn't been a lot of conversation on enforcement. You can have copyright all you want, but if you have weak enforcement, the infringement will continue to happen.
I've heard many artists complain that it's so costly to go through this, and a lot of times they can't do anything about it. They don't have the financial ability to pursue it.
As a general question to all our participants today, give me your viewpoint on what has to be done on the enforcement side of things.
5:20 p.m.
Director and Curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, and President, Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization
Speaking for museums, again, talking about the two types of relationships, in terms of paying an exhibition right or proper exhibition right to artists, that is actually policed through the funding system. If we were not paying proper exhibition fees to artists, if we were not having proper contracts with artists, that would be known to our funders and we would be chastised for that, or our funding would be refused. Obviously, artists have the legal right to pursue us in that case, but it's already policed through the funding system.
In terms of the other types of rights, the ones that are better managed through a more collective system, such as the PLR system, there the point is to get all players registered with the system, the creators and the users of copyright, so that there's a seamless system for the flowing through of resources.
Does that answer your question?
5:25 p.m.
President, Illustration Québec
I will bounce back to the testimony that had just been given. It is indeed true that the public lending right only works if all authors register their works.
5:25 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
When we're looking at a global network, no longer policed just within our borders, within Canada, that's not the issue, because it's a lot more effective within your own country. I'm talking about a lot of things that happen outside our borders. As we know, infringement happens; copyright infringement happens all the time. Monitoring of it is a challenge and actually pursuing individuals who continue to use other people's work for their financial benefit is a challenge.
I haven't heard a number. We don't even know the value in terms of how much that has cost our industry yearly in copyright infringement. Various countries will take your work, mass-produce something and send it out, and that actually affects the bottom line of a lot of the creators and the artists. Therefore, in your view, how should the government help pursue these people who continually violate the Copyright Act?
5:25 p.m.
Director and Curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, and President, Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization
In terms of people outside of Canada, one of the virtues of a system such as the PLR system for that type of copyright is that then agreements can be signed with other countries that have a similar system in place. Then Canadian artists are recompensed for use of their material in the other country, and artists from that country are recompensed for the use of their material in Canada. The commission in Canada and the commission in, say, Germany form an agreement, and it's only two bodies that have to come to an agreement to make it work.
5:25 p.m.
President, Illustration Québec
Actually, I'm also going to bounce back to the testimony about collectives. They are in touch and discuss with each other all over the world in order to pay back the rights. This is the case with the Société québécoise de gestion collective, or COPIBEC, which has agreements in France with other sister societies, if I can call them that, including SOFIA and SAIF. There are international agreements of this type.
The other reality is that this doesn't exist in all countries of the world. There are about 10 countries, mainly in Europe, that have these links and that exchange copyright information with Canada. In the case of Quebec, these fees are paid through COPIBEC.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
I would like to thank all of today's witnesses.
Your ideas were very interesting and very helpful.
On that note, that will bring this meeting to an end.
The meeting is adjourned.