Industry Committee on May 7th, 2018

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

When a song is produced, can you educate me in the process? I know there are songwriters, and the people who write the lyrics. If it's a five-stage process, where is most of the cost incurred, and where is most of the revenue going?

[Scott Long]

If we start with revenue, I suppose the songwriting royalty in itself is probably the most lucrative, so whoever wrote the song.... Then their publisher would be the first mainstream in royalty. After that there are performance royalties or neighbouring rights as well. Those are royalties that would be due to people performing the music but who didn't compose it. Then there would be live touring. Probably now in the digital age, live-playing revenue is the most important source of revenue and probably the largest, especially for independent artists, because revenues from recording royalties, streaming, and physical sales are so low.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We're going to move to Mr. Lloyd. You have five minutes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Nicholas, I want to thank you for your moving testimony. It had an impact on me.

If the roles were reversed, and your community were protected by the Copyright Act instead of being victimized by it, would you view someone using your stories without consent or permission as an act of colonialism?

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

Of course.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Would that be consistent with your view of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that it would be inconsistent for aboriginal, indigenous stories to be used without consent and permission, as going against the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

That would be consistent, yes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

This is going to get into a more technical question. I realize that you say you're not a lawyer or copyright expert, but if we were to recommend the creation of some sort of collective copyright ownership policy in the case of, let's say, an individual from your community who wrote an original story based on their experiences, but drawing from the community experiences, do you think that would be acceptable or would your community desire to seek a collective copyright and seek compensation from an individual from your community publishing stories and making some money off them?

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

There could be several ways of dealing with this in a community. It could be a joint copyright, depending on the content of the story. If it's largely the intellectual content of the individual, I don't think the community would argue and say they have some claim to that story. But if it's a traditional story that has just been reworked in some way, or reworked totally, the individual might lay claim to it.

We have been videotaping in our community, and we have worked out that kind of agreement, where the stories would be jointly.... The storyteller, but the community also, would have some claim to that story for purposes of giving permission, let's say, down the road for others to use it. We're not talking heavily about money or proceeds from these works; we're talking about not losing control over these stories. I think that's the biggest issue we've had to deal with.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate your answers.

Mr. Long, I realize you've been put a bit on the hot seat here with all the Music Canada stuff.

I take in your concerns. I have independent radio stations in my riding that certainly aren't directly affiliated with the larger players. Would you view, in the exemption for the first $1.25 million, which is...? I believe you said you pay about $100 on the first $1.25 million, and then after that you would pay a more agreeable amount. Obviously, this was made back in the nineties, when it was first set. Rather than creating a new litigious process, where there's a negotiation and the biggest beneficiaries will be the lawyers, would you view it as a possible recommendation to raise that limit from $100 to something larger to take into a pact? Could there be an amount that would be an acceptable compensation for the producers?

[Scott Long]

Potentially, yes. I'm sure that if any effort were made to review this and to look at change—and again, change that will be beneficial for all and not harm the small local independent stations, although they are still using licensed intellectual property to sell advertising.... But yes, any effort to fix that, I would say, we and people in the Canadian music industry would be open to.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I apologize, Mr. Westwood. We dealt with a lot of your stuff in the previous panel.

Mr. Lorimer, I think the proposal you brought here is very interesting. To me, it looks as if you're almost proposing a Netflix or a Spotify, but for the academic world. Would you agree with that characterization?

[James Lorimer]

We're definitely aiming to be a platform.

As I said earlier, we think that the opportunity for discovering content.... It's very hard for an academic to keep on top of, especially when there is material in books that they wouldn't necessarily see as hitting right on the head of their discipline. There's other material out there.

A good example is that if you look across our platform for material that has to do with policing and the impact on aboriginal people and on black Canadians, you will find material popping up and interesting discussions across multiple different fields: law, sociology, social work, economics, and politics. It's surprising.

Yes, getting revenue—that is important in this kind of publishing—is one of our objectives. But another objective....

Our real objective isn't to get rich. We wouldn't have gone into book publishing if we were doing that.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Especially as a non-profit, as you had claimed earlier.

[James Lorimer]

Behind the non-profits are the publishing companies. The money flows through the publishing companies. It's more that we want to get this material.

We publish it because we think it's important for people to read, and that's what this would achieve, making the material much more available and accessible and easier to use in courses so people could build more relevant, more up-to-date material for their students than they're able to get from standard textbooks.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Would your group consider a subscription fee where you can have access to unlimited content, but you pay an upfront monthly rate?

[James Lorimer]

Of course, that's what Access Copyright does. That's the Access tariff approach to life. I think you have heard enough to know that there's a huge resistance on the part of the universities to paying fees when they don't see the direct connection. First of all, they don't want to pay fees at all, but if they do have to pay, they really resist that.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I realize you have a unique proposition here, but what would you say is the greatest distinction between your proposal and Access Copyright's proposal?

[James Lorimer]

Pay to play is our thing, and the money is staying in Canada, going to Canadian publishers of Canadian material. If you were to get good information, which is tough to get—I'm not even sure you would get it from Access—about what was happening with the money universities were paying under the Access tariff, I think you would be surprised at the distribution of that money between staying in Canada and going elsewhere.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We're going to move to Ms. Ng. You have five minutes.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, everybody, for joining us today.

I would like to spend my time asking you questions, Ms. Nicholas. Thank you for your testimony.

I would like to use this as a bit of an opportunity for you to help me learn a little bit. If I understand correctly, there is storytelling by the elders and by others in the community that has taken place. At present, those stories are told, and a couple of things happen. You don't have the right, or the community does not have the right, to publish that because you don't have the rights to them after the story has been told.

Am I understanding that part correctly?

[Prof. Andrea Bear Nicholas]

We don't have rights because somebody not of our community taped those stories.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

The rights have now turned to the individual or whoever it is who taped it and no longer belong to the person who is the content creator, the knowledge creator.