Industry Committee on May 10th, 2018

[Sherri Rollins]

It depends on the year. Are we doing the The Lion King musical as a division, as we did last year? Is there a particular human rights inquiry that we're doing as a division? Is a particular high school with 1,500 students doing something in particular? It really does depend. On average, we hit around the $30,000 or more ballpark.

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

I think that's it for my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Masse, you have seven minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you everyone for being here today.

Ms. Robertson, could you remind us again how much your income as an author has dropped or changed in the last few years?

[Patricia Robertson]

My reimbursement from Access Copyright has dropped from $550 per year to $63.

I should clarify. It's been dropping year by year, and this year it was $63.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Have other opportunities emerged to increase your revenue capabilities?

[Patricia Robertson]

I wish I could answer yes, but no. I think it's important also to keep in mind that the entire cultural sector is under assault by companies like Amazon, and by Google, which is, as we speak, illegally reproducing work under copyright. It eventually won that case in the States, which a number of authors resisted.

I have a briefing note here from The Writers' Union of Canada, which has done a number of surveys showing that writers' incomes are falling precipitously in all areas.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I want to thank you for coming forth. We have to show some humility on this side that you have to disclose personal information like this. I find it odd, in terms of where we are now—and we just saw it again with this panel—that we know for a fact that most artists have not seen compensation improvements under the current situation, generally speaking. We hear everyone else fighting over the use of it and how much they should get from the spoils.

We need to remind ourselves as we try to find some solutions that maybe they don't reside just in this review of copyright. This exercise is probably going to be more about hopefully carving a path forward to get some type of justice, because we're just doing a review. In the meantime, you're right. The giants of Amazon, Google, and so forth will continue, and it's not sustainable.

[Patricia Robertson]

May I just add a comment?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, of course.

[Patricia Robertson]

There has been a great emphasis in this room on digital property, but e-books have levelled off. E-books are not becoming the be-all and end-all. Many people are returning to print.

In the information given by Ms. Romaniuk about acquisitions by libraries, I think she was not including course packs. She was talking about subscriptions to journals and so on, many of which are written by tenured professors who are getting tenured salaries. Independent writers like me are not. We rely on really cobbling together strings of income that include, ideally, being paid for writing.

None of us went into this to get rich. I had no dollar signs in my eyes that I was going to become J. K. Rowling. We do it because we love it. We do it because it's a call. We would appreciate compensation for reproduction of a work, which existed before the educational sector unilaterally reinterpreted—illegally, as the court has now ruled— what those tariffs should be.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's interesting, because there's more to it than just the digital age. I agree with your perspective. The same thing was said of radio. The same thing was said of bookstores. All you have to do is look at the United States. Independent bookstores have had a resurgence. It's similar to microbreweries and so forth. There's a cultural connection that goes beyond the words on the piece of printed paper or on the screen we're looking at.

Ms. Romaniuk, in terms of the purchasing that's being done, I'm wondering whether you've noticed a shift. We know that there are basically five large conglomerates that package and bundle for purchasing. In terms of your publishers, and I know there's a mixture, with Canadian authors in some of those publications, have those fees gone up? Have those increased over the last number of years?

[Mary-Jo Romaniuk]

I will answer that question in two ways. First of all, the journal publishers have certainly enjoyed an increase. In other words, for anything we're purchasing in journal format, those fees have gone up significantly.

In terms of licensing e-book content, it's a little bit different, because there are two kinds of e-book content. Some we license so that we have use, and every year we have a different package we get to use. There are other ones we buy outright, or we buy use in a more continual way. It's hard to compare those. It's like saying you have a print monograph one year that you pay a price for. If you buy a different one next year, is it a different price?”

Yes, overall, our fees have gone up, but at differing rates. I don't know if I'm answering your question.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's great. You are. You're answering my question.

Would you say that if you didn't have access to some of those, you would become a little bit more dependent if, say, some of those were consolidated and you had less choice in terms of the packages of journals and so forth? The trend I'm seeing, as we've travelled and seen from Ottawa, is that there seems to be almost a dependency model that's now being thrust upon school boards, universities, and colleges. They all seem to be subscribing to similar operations for purchasing. I'm wondering if that's happening here as well.

[Mary-Jo Romaniuk]

Well, part of it relates to the academic process and the need to publish in journals for tenure and promotion purposes and to share research from grants. It's a fact that people will share the research that comes from grants. As we move to open access models, some of that's changing. The library profession and others are trying to advocate for more open access, which will have a different effect on that cost.

Most of this discussion is more on the scholarly monograph piece. I think we continue to try to buy those in ways that support Canadian content. I'm not sure that there's any aggregation model. We buy from the Association of University Presses, which have banded together to sell to all of us. I would argue that they do better, because they now license through the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, which exposes their content to 67 institutions, many of which may not have purchased.

Again, it's a licensing model. How the creators are compensated, I can't honestly say.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'll come back. I have some time later.

It's interesting, because what's evident is that the creators are squeezed at every angle, and anyone who uses them never really knows how much they pay them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

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

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

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. It's great to be here in Winnipeg and to hear all your perspectives.

Ms. Greenberg, I'm going to pick up on a point you talked about by way of the recommendations you shared with us. You said that there needs to be clarification on fair dealing and the way it's interpreted and that you, as Manitoba publishers, would certainly be prepared to work with educators.

You didn't say it, but I guess I'll ask it. Would that also include the content creators and writers? The question actually is less for you than it is for the others. You put a proposition out there about an opportunity to perhaps provide some clarity on fair dealing and a way it could work that addresses some of the issues authors and content creators are seeing, which is a reduction in income, which we've certainly heard consistently, and to speak to educators about whether there is really an opportunity.

Based on what you said, is that something you, as an author or content creator, and you, as a university, would actually consider as an approach to help put some definition around the use of fair dealing that may be different from what it is today? This is to the authors and to the university. You suggested it as a recommendation. Would there even be interest in this?

[Annalee Greenberg]

I'm going to very quickly say something before Patricia.

What everyone seems to forget is that we had a really good system before, with the Access Copyright situation, which defined very clearly what was and wasn't usable. It was basically heaved out of here unilaterally by educational institutions, and without any consultation, as I mentioned.

It worked, and it worked in a relatively inexpensive way. We should be looking back at what worked in the past.

[Patricia Robertson]

I would echo that. It's certainly the position of The Writers' Union of Canada. I'm not here to speak for them, but they make it very clear in a briefing note they provided to me that we need, and we had, a functioning collective licensing structure before the educational sector came up with their own interpretation of what they should be paying. They're continuing to use our content, and content published by publishers, yet they have decided they don't want to compensate us.

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

Ms. Andrew, would you comment?

[Naomi Andrew]

We've switched a little from fair dealing to Access Copyright, so maybe I'll first speak to Access Copyright and point out that the university was not using a lot of the material and content in the collection offered by Access Copyright. We were already licensing a lot of the content offered by the same collective under separate models, so we were paying—

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

We've heard that, so maybe you can actually go back to the fair dealing.

[Naomi Andrew]

It would be limiting, and the Supreme Court has always encouraged a flexible approach as opposed to rigid application of fair dealing exemptions. I certainly have read those cases. They're well written and well thought out, and I support that reasoning.

I should also say that if we had that rigid application, it's not necessarily the case that universities would go back to Access Copyright or use more of that information. We are switching our models, and it's very likely that we would encourage professors and course packs to rely more on open access material and the material that we license. We have a lot of links in licensing, so our model is really shifting towards licensed material and that access.

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

Ms. Andrew, to help me understand a bit better, I just want to ask you about access to indigenous works and some of the archival material you have from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We are very interested in understanding and learning about where some of those barriers are.

You talked about copyright being a barrier. Can you just expand very briefly on what that is, so we have some understanding of it?