Hello.
It's difficult for one act to cover all of the things that we've heard about, even just what with what we heard about today, with the producers ranging from art centre authors to billion-dollar international corporations, and the consumers ranging from individuals, to academic consortia and their student bodies, to large corporations. I've been involved through my career with software development, notably for libraries, and also dealing with publishers' groups from time to time.
In my experience in the software world, most intellectual property is overvalued by the creators, partly because the idea is not a marketable thing and you need a lot of people and help— publishers, editors, distributors, and so on—to give value to that. Having said that, I think that IP creators should be rewarded for their efforts, but fairly rewarded in the view of all these other costs, including the cost to society of enforcing copyright. Even if it's just the cost to Canada Border Services Agency of screening for fake DVDs coming into the country, there are costs involved in that.
We heard from academic groups this afternoon that they're happy to pay for content, but it's difficult for them to do so. They don't want to pay twice for something. They don't want to bundle when they need one piece from it. I'm surprised that I've never heard people talking about the mechanisms for enforcing copyright and why there isn't a little thinking outside the box, realizing the difficulties distinguishing between out of the box and off the wall sometimes.
Why isn't there a simple registry of copyrights, copyright owners, so you can go there and say I want that book, I'm paying the fair price for that book? I want one poem from that book and I'll pay the fair price for that. Then it's simple, you know where to go and you know what you're going to pay for it.
By the way, that same mechanism could be used if you think you want to extend your copyright, you could do so through a registry like that. It might not be free. If you think your IP is worth thousands of dollars, there may be a cost to asking society to enforce your IP rights and the cost would go to the enforcement, of course.
My final point is the effect of cultural chill with copyright. There ought to be mechanisms in which I, as a documentary producer, for instance can produce a documentary about you at home and, by the way, you're watching television and maybe listening to some music and I shouldn't have to be worried about cutting all that stuff out.
Thank you.