Industry Committee on May 9th, 2018

[Hugo Setzer]

I think it's not just the amount of what can be reproduced from a certain work—if it's 10% or 8%—the most important part is how many copies you are making. If you're making a copy for your own personal use, that's accepted in many countries.

However, what I have heard—and I'm not so familiar with the situation in Canada—from Canadian publishers is that some universities are somewhat taking this expression of educational exception in the law to make copies for all their students from one chapter from one book and one chapter of another. Perhaps having one chapter is not too much, but having one chapter from 12 different books and then distributing that to all their students is definitely hurting the business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Very briefly, please.

[Heather Martin]

We had a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that said with the copies that teachers make on behalf of their students, the purpose to be considered is the purpose of the student. It's not the teacher who needs the copies, it's the student.

When you talk about fair dealing and that it's okay for a student to make a copy, those copies being made by instructors are for the benefit of their students. I believe that fair dealing allows those copies to be made on behalf of students.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Lloyd.

You have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Setzer, I'd like to get your comment on something that Ms. Graham stated earlier, that the decline in print sales and the rise of digital content made paying for Access Copyright obsolete.

Does Access Copyright not also provide digital content, and do you believe that the rise in digital content is responsible for universities cutting off Access Copyright?

[Hugo Setzer]

I couldn't speak directly for Access Copyright, but most of collective management organizations throughout the world can also licence digital content.

What we are trying to do as publishers, together with authors, is to develop these licensing schemes with collective management organizations to make it easier for users to get the licences.

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

With regard to these JSTOR and other digital platforms, are they distinct from the content that is offered by groups like Access Copyright and yourself, or are they duplicative?

[Hugo Setzer]

I'm not familiar with this platform, but—

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

For example, we have academic journals that universities pay for, and it's a broad variety of journal articles and things like that.

Are these also held by Access Copyright, or are they distinct? They hold some things; Access Copyright holds other things.

[Hugo Setzer]

I think there is an important difference with academic scientific journals, for example, which were mentioned a while ago. They are published by the main international publishers worldwide, which do a lot of investment into publishing those journals That's one part. They tend to offer the licences directly, as far as I know.

Then there are things being licensed, for example, by Access Copyright, which are most of the textbooks and other learning materials being used in schools and universities.

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

Would you say that in these textbooks versus in the digital stuff there is a lot of duplication or are they distinct materials?

[Hugo Setzer]

They're different materials.

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

Okay. This final one is a request to the International Publishers, because you do have a unique position which, I think, can inform this committee. Would your organization be willing to provide a breakdown in terms of spending by countries like Canada that have public universities, so, for example, United Kingdom and France, on what their universities spend on copyright as compared to what Canada spends? Would you be able to provide that information, not today but through a submission?

[Hugo Setzer]

I'm not sure whether we have that information. If we have it, we'll be glad to do so. So it's the spending by universities in different countries?

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

Yes.

[Hugo Setzer]

I'm not sure if we have that information, but I'll be glad to provide it if we have it.

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

Thank you.

My next set of questions is for Mr. Harnum.

Throughout our hearings, we've had multiple representatives from library groups request TPM circumvention measures in cases where it is covered by fair dealing, and also for the right to override contracts in the same cases. However, we haven't really heard anything from the publisher side saying they disagree with that. Could you comment on that?

[William Harnum]

I don't know. Certainly none of my members use TPMs, so I'll turn that over to Ms. Hebb. She may help you.

[Marian Hebb]

I think that's an overstated case. It isn't that important to a lot of Canadian publishers, and as long as there are licences in place, it shouldn't be an issue.

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

Thank you. It's enlightening for me to know that among publishers, TPMs are not really widely used.

I'll ask the library.

[William Harnum]

We'd use it if we knew how.

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

I would ask the libraries, in terms of TPM circumvention, whose TPMs they are trying to circumvent.

[Susan Caron]

For us it's really e-books and it could be e-audiobooks. If we have, for example, a customer who wants to use a small portion of an e-book the same way they would use a portion of a printed book for personal research or study, they can't do it.

We have a program called Poetry Saved our Lives in the library, in which the participants take found poetry and turn it into performances. They often use small portions of books, but obviously one actually came and asked about an e-book and we can't do anything about it.

One of the things I should say about it not being an issue for Canadian publishers as much as for trade publications is that there are very few Canadian e-books available to libraries except through the big five multinationals. There are very few Canadian e-audiobooks, and that is one of our main issues. We want to buy this material. In the case of one multinational, they are not selling their e-audiobooks to libraries. They are selling them, instead, through paid subscriptions like Audible or Kobo.

I should note that Prime Minister Trudeau's book is available only as an audiobook through Audible. Public libraries in Canada cannot buy Prime Minister Trudeau's book.

[A voice]

Good.

[Another voice]

I'm not hearing objections.