Canadian Heritage Committee on June 21st, 2021

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Maybe I'll give you a little time to talk a bit more about what that collective licensing could look like and why it is so important to the work that you're doing.

[Glenn Rollans]

That's a really important question. When you start talking about copyright, it quite quickly gets into detail.

For a small company like mine, trying to track small individual users in colleges, universities and K-12 schools across the country, monitoring for infringement, monitoring for payment for use of resources, and then bringing individual actions against those people if infringement happens is an absolute impossibility. I don't have the capacity to litigate at the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada.

Our properly constituted collective is Access Copyright. It represents us in those transactions, making simple access affordable, and making the importance of compensation to the rights holders also simple. It's taken care of easily and affordably.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I understand that universities do employ copyright staff to prevent infringement, but I'm hearing from you that this is not sufficient and that in fact it puts the burden on you and other writers and producers, so the impacts are quite great.

Can you talk a bit more about what you would like to see instead? If we know that having copyright staff is not sufficient, what would “sufficient” look like, in your opinion?

[Glenn Rollans]

It's important to recognize that the copyright staff are administering a policy that the Federal Court has said is unfair. What they're doing is, in an arbitrary way, saying to their population of students and instructors, “You can use this much for free.” They're enforcing what is in fact an illegal policy.

On top of that, I think it's really offensive and regrettable and shows a lack of respect that they're spending almost as much on those officers as they would be spending on a licence. Hugh Stephens, who does a blog on copyright matters, has calculated that it's about $13 or $14 per student in direct costs for those copyright officers—whose job is to not pay publishers and not pay writers—and the cost of the licence at the post-secondary level is $14.31.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Landon, I'm wondering about this. We are hearing quite a lot on one side of this issue, and it seems quite compelling. I'm wondering what you would say to the idea that with their copyright staff, the universities are not in fact doing what needs to be done to protect our writers across Canada.

[Philip Landon]

Thanks for the question and the opportunity, Ms. McPherson.

What I would say to it is that the universities are and have been following the law as it has been applied in the Copyright Act, and as the Supreme Court has upheld through five rulings. They're not cheating. They're not “scavenging”, as some of the language that has come out says. They're actually following the Canadian law on copyright, which expects that there is a balance between users' rights and creators' rights. That's what the Copyright Act of 2012 has stated, and that's what the Supreme Court has upheld.

Yes, there are numerous legal interpretations, and it's before the Supreme Court at the moment around the case that Access Copyright has taken York University to court on, but as I said in my opening statement, universities are committed to copyright compliance and they are promoting copyright compliance throughout, with officers and with alternate means.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

I'm running out of time, but I wanted to give Ms. Levy an opportunity—it looked like her hand was going up—to comment on that as well, if you could.

[Roanie Levy]

I just want to highlight the fact that the Federal Court at trial and the Federal Court of Appeal both concluded that the fair dealing guidelines that are adopted by all of the universities across Canada and that were put together by the association that Mr. Landon represents are in fact not fair. What the universities are doing is not following the law—quite the contrary. It was an unequivocal conclusion by the trial and the appeal court that what they are doing is not fair and leads to illegal copying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I'm sorry, folks. I have to stop it right there. We have to go to our second round.

I noticed, Ms. McNicoll, that you had your hand up earlier, but perhaps we could deal with it in the next round of questioning. I want to point out that you did have your hand up, albeit virtually, but it was there.

Nevertheless, in the second round we now will go to Mr. Waugh for five minutes, please.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome, guests.

I was a school board trustee in Saskatchewan for 10 years and also sat on the executive of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association. As you all know, budgets everywhere have been reduced, and the first place you look at in schools is the purchase of new materials.

It's interesting, because the first cuts that we make as trustees around the table are usually to the resource library people, which is probably the last area you should look at. I do notice that in Saskatchewan—in fact, in Saskatoon right now—one school division is down $8 million, and the first place they looked at was teacher and librarian cuts.

I'm going to start with Ms. Levy and then I'm going to go to Ms. McNicoll.

Ms. McNicoll, you were right. On the teachers side, they spend their own money on books lots of times, and on writings and so on. Could you comment on that? Somebody made the comment that teachers are often at the photocopier at 7:00 in the morning or 4:30 in the afternoon. Can you talk about that?

I'll start with Ms. McNicoll. You're not blaming the teachers. You know, as school board trustees, we really looked the other way, to be honest with you, because we were looking for ways to save money for the school division. It's not only in Saskatchewan. I can tell you that Canadian school boards also looked the other way, because everyone is looking for money.

[Sylvia McNicoll]

How to answer you best, Mr. Waugh?

Let me tell you this: When I do signings at the Ontario Library Association, I recognize the teachers from my own board. There will be three to five teachers lined up to get a free autographed book from me. That will be how they get my books.

From 2012 to 2021, sales of my books have gone from perhaps 6,000 books in Canada down to 1,400. I also feel that now we are entering into squatters' rights. Teachers and school boards have gotten away without a licence for 11 years. They can't possibly imagine paying the horrific sum of $2.41 a child. They can't afford it, they say.

In effect, our teachers don't know this. They feel they're complying, as they are, with fair dealing, but the school boards are saying, “We can't afford culture.”

One of my daughters works for a small company that is a subcontractor for other publishers. They were publishing a book on immigration for wide use, and this had a lot of Trump theory, so there's a huge danger in allowing our voices to be shut down.

I love teachers. I love that they read my books out loud, but you have to understand that they're reading them out loud and they're being recorded. Next year they'll use them again, and they're not going to pay me $2.41.

Korea bought 18,000 of my books. Colombia bought 15,000. Canada bought 1,400. Yes, I know: They are different populations.

Does that answer your question, Mr. Waugh?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I knew that because I see teachers at the photocopying machine, either in the morning or after school.

Ms. Levy, you talked about Coteau Books. It went bankrupt in Regina, and it's too bad, because Mr. Currie did wonderful work.

I do see the steady rise in the number of authors now turning to self-publishing or using local publishers instead of submitting their manuscripts to major companies. There's a big movement in western Canada with the indigenous curriculum.

How are those stories going to be told now? That's one of the big issues that I see in the future.

[Roanie Levy]

That's a very good question.

In preparing for this session, I was talking with the general manager for Pearson Canada. It's the largest educational publisher in Canada and in the world, I believe. She was telling me she had received a call from [Technical difficulty—Editor] asking her whether or not they were going to update their history textbook to reflect residential schools more appropriately.

She was sharing with me that it was very unlikely that Pearson would be able to make that investment. In fact, they significantly scaled back their investments in content for the elementary and secondary school sector. They have let go 30% of their staff in elementary and secondary publishing, simply because it is difficult to make those investments when you see your work being copied, whether it's at the photocopier or it's being digitally shared on learning management systems. There was also a continued decline in sales.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Levy.

We'll now go to Mr. Louis for five minutes please.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all our panellists.

I do want to begin, on this National Indigenous Peoples Day, by saying that I'm in Kitchener, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Anishinabe, Haudenosaunee and Neutral peoples.

This is a very interesting conversation. Ms. McPherson mentioned that a number of us, myself included, are newly elected, so we're jumping right in. It looks like there's been an ongoing discussion, and I am glad to be part of it.

Until a year and a half ago, I was a full-time musician and writer. I can see the unbelievable parallels between songwriting and writing, just in a different medium. I feel kindred.

Ms. McNicoll, your hand was up about a round ago when Ms. Levy was talking about dealing with court cases, trials and appeal courts. I wonder if you would like to add to that conversation before I continue my line of questioning.

[Sylvia McNicoll]

Yes and no, but I wanted to add one point, which is that Jacqueline Guest, a member of the Order of Canada, was first published by Coteau. Coteau has now gone under. I would assume that if Jacqueline Guest were beginning today, she would not have her voice heard.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Point taken. I appreciate that.

Ms. Levy, you mentioned that one collective licence for students would fix this. Again, for someone new, could you explain the apparent simplicity of just applying this collective agreement? Are you talking about going back and paying back payment, or are you talking about just on a moving forward basis?

[Roanie Levy]

Conceptually, what has happened with the education sector is that the lion's share of them have abandoned collective licensing in exchange for guidelines that are in fact not fair, in exchange for giving themselves the authority to copy without paying.

What would solve this would be to go back to collective licence and have an agreement whereby educational institutions can make copies of works in exchange for a payment. The collective licence provides access to a broad repertoire of work. It makes it easy for teachers and educators to pick up the book that's on their shelf to scan it, or the book that's in their computer and share a chapter of it with their students in exchange for a very reasonable payment.

I just want to highlight, because the cost to the education sector has been mentioned, that when you look at it relatively speaking, you'll see that the price of the licence is 0.0004% of the cost of education, whether it's at the K-12 level or at the post-secondary level. We are not talking about huge sums of money to the education sector, but they are sums that are absolutely meaningful and impactful to the writers and publishers of the content that is being copied without compensation.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Levy.

I would go so far as to say the information and the knowledge is priceless. You really can't put a price on it.

Mr. Degen, I was going to turn to you and ask you a question next, but your hand is up, so I think you wanted to add to that. Then my question to you in the remaining time is this: Are there examples of other countries—as you work for other international authors—that we could use as a model?

First, though, you wanted to weigh in on this.

[John Degen]

That's terrific. Thank you for the question, Mr. Louis.

I just wanted to add to what Roanie was saying, because I'm busily paying these bills myself right now. I have two sons heading to university and I have to say that the university licence is $14.31 per student. I work in culture and I don't make a whole lot of money. In paying the university bills, that's the lowest part of the bill by far, and the least painful part for us. We would very gladly pay that licence fee.

You asked about other countries. I do a lot of work internationally. As a matter of fact, just before coming here, Roanie Levy and I were both on a panel talking about copyright exceptions around the world. Other countries look at Canada with a little bit of discomfort and fear right now, because they have established collective licensing for educational purposes in place and they don't want to see this kind of move away from collective licensing happen within their markets because they've seen how destructive it is for us. If you look at England, if you look at Australia, if you look at some of our larger partners out there, you see that they all have very respectful licensing in place for educational uses.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Chair, I believe that is my time. I would have more questions, but I'm just out of time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You are. That is exactly five minutes. Thank you very much.

Now we have Mr. Champoux for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to put a question to Mr. Landon to get an idea of universities' point of view.

Mr. Landon, we have not had the pleasure of meeting over the past few months, and I am concerned about the role of universities. For me, they don't have the same role as for-profit companies. They are institutions that disseminate knowledge, and shape the leaders of tomorrow and good citizens. In that sense, I feel that their role must focus much more on moral than on legal aspects.

You have often mentioned that you respect the law in how you manage copyright. I subscribe to all sorts of online music providers, including Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal, and I pay for the content I listen to on those platforms. However, I cannot justify paying for those subscriptions to enable me to illegally download content on other platforms.

When you say that you are already paying several million dollars in copyright fees, I get the impression that you are providing justifications. It is as if you were saying that, because you are already paying millions of dollars in copyright fees, it's not a big deal to make copies of work that is the property of writers and authors. I am somewhat under the impression that you are justifying yourself in what you are saying.

I would like you to elaborate on this, Mr. Landon, as it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

[Philip Landon]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

Yes, it's exactly that. The universities pay for the copyright in a variety of ways [Technical difficulty—Editor] and in a variety of ways that are legal, that are in the Copyright Act and that have been supported by the Supreme Court of Canada. It's similar to paying for some platforms, but then not downloading or taking songs illegally. Universities do the same with their materials.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You should cherish and protect your relationship with authors. They are the ones who produce the content you then pass on to students.

I am surprised to see you hiding behind legislative measures, which are imperfect, recognized as such and decried by writers' and authors' associations. I am a bit surprised by your position on that.