Good afternoon. My name is Christian Laforce and I am the executive director of Copibec.
Copibec is a Quebec-based non-profit organization specializing in copyright management. It was founded in 1997 and represents over 30,000 authors and more than 1,400 publishing houses. Copibec facilitates legal access to a vast repertoire of works protected by the Copyright Act through licencing.
Copibec has entered into agreements with 34 foreign companies to include publications from these countries in its repertoire. This year, we have distributed over $13 million to rights holders, for a total of $300 million since Copibec's inception.
Over the past few years, Copibec has been involved in a number of files on artificial intelligence, including the federal consultation on generative artificial intelligence in 2024 and work on Bill C‑27.
More recently, Copibec appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for its study on the effects of artificial intelligence on the creative industries. Our observations can be found in the report that the committee presented to the House of Commons last April.
Generative artificial intelligence is evolving at record speed and is profoundly reshaping cultural industries. Generative artificial intelligence companies receive substantial investments from governments, and they have quickly drawn on the extensive works produced by Canadian authors, and have done so while disregarding the Copyright Act. I would remind the committee that this legislation gives rights holders exclusive rights, and as such, the use of any protected works to train generative artificial intelligence systems requires authorization, particularly when it comes to text and data mining.
Compliance with the Copyright Act must be ensured in the context of artificial generative intelligence and any artificial intelligence regulation must include this requirement. In this regard, Copibec supports the principles of authorization, remuneration and transparency, or ART, which have been brought forward by the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, of which we are a member, and which Marie‑Julie Desrochers spoke to earlier.
In addition, Copibec recommends that the Copyright Act should not have any exception for text and data mining. We hope Minister Solomon will retain these recommendations in his national artificial intelligence strategy, which will reportedly be unveiled soon.
In this regard, a number of comparable countries, including European Union member countries, the United Kingdom and Australia, have affirmed the need to comply with copyright when training artificial intelligence models. Canada should follow their lead.
In May 2025, Copibec signed an exclusive partnership in Canada with Botscorner, which has leading-edge technology to help publishers identify bots and give them concrete tools to negotiate, block or enter into licencing agreements to use their content. The use of this tool has shown us that some bots scrape content, despite the use of exclusion files, such as robots.txt files, which create rules that are applicable to these types of automated activities.
Similarly, we have launched a study to review the reality of the automated harvesting of content on media sites in Quebec, in collaboration with the Quebec research chair on French-language artificial intelligence and digital technologies. The findings will be released in September.
We are taking a proactive approach to protecting right holders' content, but we should not be alone in speaking out against these violations. We want to make it clear that Copibec has nothing against artificial intelligence. We also want to point out that all creators have no issue with artificial intelligence, because they have always incorporated new tools into their work. That is not the issue here; the issue is to strike a fair balance in an evolving economic model.
We can't afford to wait for the outcome of the lawsuits against web giants in Quebec, Canada and other parts of the world, because artificial intelligence is advancing more quickly than the law can keep up. Creative industries are the pillar of Canada's culture and identity and a key economic driver. The sector cannot self-regulate. The government must enact legislation to protect our cultural sovereignty.
Thank you for your attention.