I prepared a briefing note on webcasting. I am going to go through the briefing note and outline the most important aspects of this issue.
In 2007, this committee was made aware of two instances of unauthorized webcasting of committee proceedings. The committee had received letters from the chairs of the finance and heritage committees, and in one instance there was apparently a witness who had recorded the proceedings of the committee without authorization.
Prior to these letters to the committee, a letter was sent by the Office of the Law Clerk to the organization, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, which had put this webcast on their website and on YouTube. Basically, the letter said it was against parliamentary privilege, because the House of Commons and committee had the right to control the use, publication, or broadcast of its proceedings. Their response was that they would not remove the material from their website or from YouTube, but that they would be happy to follow any guidelines suggested to them.
The proceedings of the House of Commons and the proceedings of committees are made available on ParlVU. However, if someone wants to use these proceedings and put them on a website, there are currently no guidelines. So the Office of the Law Clerk will deny any requests in this regard. There are guidelines that will apply for audio broadcasts or video broadcasts, but apparently those guidelines are not enforced for webcasting of proceedings.
This committee has within its mandate the issue and report of broadcasting of House of Commons and committee proceedings. It is within the purview of the committee. But this matter also raises copyright issues. For instance, the Speaker of the House of Commons, as the head of the House, also has jurisdiction over copyright material, and at the beginning of House of Commons proceedings, notice of this jurisdiction appears on TV and on ParlVU. There's a speaker's licence, a note to the effect that this material may be used in schools or for purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review. But as I said, no authorization to webcast materials from the House of Commons or its committee will be granted by the Law Clerk, given that there are no guidelines in this respect.