Okay.
I'm Annalee Greenberg. I am co-owner and Editorial Director of Portage and Main Press, and I am here today on behalf of the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, or the AMBP. That is an organization that represents 14 publishers, producing a wide variety of books in English, French, and several indigenous languages. We want to acknowledge today that we are on Treaty No. 1 territory, home of the Métis nation.
Our primary concern is that the fair dealing section of the Copyright Act needs to be clarified. Adding education as a purpose for fair dealing has caused immense harm to Canadian and Manitoba publishers and has decimated the educational book sector. The changes affect both copyright royalties and book sales.
I know that you've heard from others in the publishing community, including the Association of Canadian Publishers, so I'll not repeat what you may have already heard, but I will provide some examples of how the changes have affected publishers here in Manitoba.
For instance, before 2012, Access Copyright royalty payments to Fernwood Publishing were enough to support a full-time employee. Now the payments might support a one-third-time worker. Several Manitoba publishers have reported drops in copyright revenues of between 75% and 90%. Creative sector jobs and Canadian content are both at risk of being lost.
When the education sector devised its own guidelines without consulting publishers, it ultimately led to litigation. The case of Access Copyright versus York University in the Federal Court in July 2017 illuminated the shortcomings of the education sector's interpretation of fair dealing.
In addition to the loss of copyright revenues, publishers are also seeing decreases in sales of books, as educators copy instead of purchase.
Within a year of the changes to the copyright law, Les Éditions des Plaines experienced a 35% decrease in overall sales because of copying, and sales of its educational material continued to decrease year after year. In 2016 it completely ceased publishing on the education side because it was unsustainable. This was a move that disappointed many educators, as Les Éditions des Plaines was one of the few publishers of French material outside Quebec. Translators, scholars, and K-to-12 educators who had been employed on the educational side were casualties of this decision.
Portage and Main Press, the company I am affiliated with, was also affected. With educators buying fewer books because of copying, author royalties have diminished. These diminished sales are not being balanced with K-to-12 copying tariffs, however, which at Portage and Main are down 88% from what they were in 2013. Our authors are facing a substantial drop in income as a result of those lost royalties, the means by which they are paid for their work. In some cases, they've taken other jobs, as writing no longer supports them.
We have reconsidered publishing textbooks and other curriculum materials, as revenues no longer cover the costs necessary to attain the quality standards expected by Canadian educators and that our company has become known for. I brought a few samples of textbooks that we and du Blé have published.
The educational component of Fernwood's publishing program has decreased from over 70% of its sales to about half. In time, there will be little or nothing produced by local writers and publishers that reflects regional and national narratives for schools and teachers to copy.
One publisher reported that it may now receive orders for a single copy of a textbook for an entire school or school division, which is clearly an unsustainable business model.
We do have some recommendations.
We recommend an immediate end to unfair copying, which in itself helps to clarify fair dealing. We'd also like to see clarity around fair dealing provisions that take into account purpose, character, amount of copying, alternatives, effect of the dealing, and nature of the work, as emphasized in the ruling on the Access Copyright versus York case.
We'd like to see educators and independent Canadian publishers work together to develop fair dealing regulations that are mutually beneficial. Manitoba publishers are ready to come to the table. We'd also like to see collective licensing reinstated in the education sector, as it is proven and affordable.
With publishers no longer developing high-quality, uniquely Canadian materials, teachers will have to find other resources for their classrooms. It may be a challenge to find such materials, because quality costs and expertise must be compensated. Ultimately, Canadian students are the losers.
Thank you.