Industry Committee on May 11th, 2018

[Maya Medeiros]

I can, without getting into specifics, because I am a patent lawyer so I work on a bunch of different things. Blockchain essentially could be a great tool to track usage given the way it's distributed, depending on how one sets the networks. Blockchain can be thought of as just a fancy data structure that can be distributed across a series of different nodes, and those nodes can be controlled by different entities. It's a nice scalable solution, and there's some trust built inherently into this architecture because there's a chain effect essentially, using encryption technology that prevents things from being swapped out. It's supposed to be an authentic trail.

The issue—and it's kind of what Jerry was alluding to— is that if you're using it from an outright management perspective, it's a great way to store a bunch of data about how rights are being used. It can also include technology tools within the block. It doesn't have to be just data. You could actually put a smart contract into a block, which is essentially a piece of code that executes automatically, so if Jerry's book gets used, pay x out to Jerry.

The question, I think, from a technology standpoint is how we can upload that usage information automatically to the blockchain. Just think of it as this fancy data structure with a bunch of different blocks, so if I want to use Jerry's book, how can we facilitate the technology, that usage, so that it can update that information on the blockchain, and it can trigger that contract to pay Jerry automatically? It can eliminate some of the middle people, and might put more money into Jerry's pocket, hopefully, and the automated fashion of that can help eliminate a lot of other—

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

It doesn't really seem that viable for print, unless you're scanning the bar code, as he said.

We've been hearing from the universities and the K to 12s that digital is what they're moving towards. Would you say that blockchain technology would be very helpful for the publishing industry and for authors when it comes...?

[Maya Medeiros]

If there's an electronic record for that book, and there's a way it facilitates an automatic uploading of usage, if I access an electronic book, that should be automatically recordable in blockchain technology.

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

Yes.

I'm going to go on a rant a little bit here. The universities and the K to 12s all have copyright policies. They even have copyright officers, but when we ask consistently how they are enforcing copyright, there's sort of a pause. We've been told consistently that copyright is not being enforced. They do education. If you ask them, they'll say that this is their policy—10%—just like York University. If you ask how they know someone's not doing 20% or 100%, it's sort of just a shrug, that they can't monitor that.

I'm guessing that blockchain seems like the technology that can also come up in a digital age. It would be able to track whenever a university was distributing a copy of something, then as an author, if you wanted legal recourse to sue a university you believed was infringing your copyright, that data would be available for you as evidence in a court case.

[Maya Medeiros]

Presumably, if the architecture is set up so that it is an open system, those read privileges exist. That would be something you could definitely engineer.

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

I'm not trying to be too biased against the universities and the K to 12s. Can you also comment on how this could be helpful for the K to 12s and universities by giving them the data to track usage? Could it be helpful for the universities from a cost-savings perspective and a legal protection perspective?

[Maya Medeiros]

I think from a cost-savings perspective and for legal protection, they would have actual numbers on things. Even from a usage standpoint—as in, “Oh, our students really like this book”—we could track a little bit better and figure out why. Maybe they're reading it outside the classroom. They could actually keep up with book trends a little bit more easily, using it from that end. There are a lot of recommendation technologies. Once you have that data, you can use that. There are discoverability tools. It could broaden the discoverability of books they might not be aware of otherwise.

It's just a better way to track data. I think more data could be used very efficiently for different purposes.

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

Another interesting point that's been brought up, mostly by the libraries in their testimony, is that they desire the right in the copyright legislation to be able to circumvent technical protection measures and to be able to override contracts in cases where they believe the use is covered under fair use.

If they're already not monitoring copyright infringement, what sort of consequences would we see if this committee were to recommend, and the government were to implement, legislation allowing the circumvention of TPMs and contract overrides?

[Maya Medeiros]

I can't comment on that, specifically. I think if you're allowing overrides of technology protection measures, and those measures were set there to protect intellectual property, that would have a greater impact.

We are seeing a rise in technology to protect intellectual property rights. I work with a company whose CEO is based in Vancouver. She's a fantastic woman. She used to be the legal officer for RIM, or BlackBerry. They're developing a technology that's helping to track 3D rights online. With 3D printers, you can imagine all of this other interesting stuff that's coming up.

In Vancouver, there's another company, called Copypants, which has technology that can crawl the Internet and try to figure out the usage of images.

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

I have about 30 seconds left.

How can the government, or we in this copyright review, put force behind these measures? How can we give them teeth so that they'll actually help writers and publishers?

[Maya Medeiros]

I think it is to facilitate the standard and the onus of proof, because it is very expensive to show that there has been an infringement. You often need a lawyer—

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

That's the onus on the writers right now. They have to show that they're being infringed upon.

[Maya Medeiros]

Yes.

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

They can't get the evidence, because universities and K to 12s aren't tracking it right now, so it's basically like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Fun stuff.

[Maya Medeiros]

I'm taking a very balanced approach, of course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

I think you fit in perfectly with this panel. They're totally engaged in your conversation.

Mr. Jowhari, you have seven minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I want to start with Mr. Williams. You didn't get a chance to finish the last piece of your opening remarks. Since your remarks are being recorded, if you wish, you can use some of that time to finish what you were not allowed to, because you passed the seven minutes.

[Kevin Williams]

I was indicating that our works are being copied and used freely digitally, that e-books and stuff are being used without any reference at all to the original licence under which they were sold to the library in order to form course packs, and that we are receiving no compensation for that at the university level. At the high school and K-to-12 levels, the teachers have such an enormous burden to produce their own curricular materials that they're running around copying stuff left and right, and they can't really be expected to be chasing down permissions and trying to deal with that.

That's why the licence through Access Copyright was such a fair thing. They paid one fee per student per year and basically could copy, under the guidelines, as much as they like. We know that maybe they don't follow those guidelines closely, but at least in principle they know that they can go out, generate their course materials, and copy them.

I think the best way to ensure a fair process is that the tariffs set by the Canadian Copyright Board be respected and be paid by the ministries of education and by the universities. The ministries of education and the universities have decided to try to exhaust the resources of authors and publishers and Access Copyright through a prolonged legal struggle and to draw it out and bring as many actions as possible to basically exhaust our resources.

Not only is it not fair, and not only are our works being copied in a systematic and commercial way, but I also regard this as the highest form of bullying. Basically they've taken tactics from the wider marketplace and brought them into the sphere of culture and education, which I consider an inappropriate play.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Great. Thank you.

We have three authors here, and you've all brought print books and you've also talked about the downward pressure of the digital era. Going forward would you still consider writing print books or writing books and having them published on paper, or will you be moving to digital that, hopefully, with AI and blockchain could be traced and you would be compensated?

Can you comment on that?

Let's start with Ms. Brooks.

[Carellin Brooks]

I'm not a big fan of digital, as most people who know me know. I've certainly tried it once because then I never had to do it again. I don't mind if my publisher BookThug is involved in e-books and I'm sure there's an e-book, but I like print. Christina de Castell, the acting chief librarian of the Vancouver Public Library, is in the audience and can tell you a great deal more than I can about the trend.

While e-book use has really gone up enormously, we're talking very small numbers compared to the numbers of print books that people read. People tend to like reading e-books for very specific things like for textbooks, for example, because textbooks are so expensive, or for romance novels, because people who read that genre read a lot, so they need to go through a lot of printed material.

Again, I'm not going to say no, but I would also always want the printed copy.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Thompson.

[Jerry Thompson]

I have sort of accepted that digital is inevitable whether I like it or not. I can sort of as an environmentalist appreciate the fact that we don't cut as many trees down when we do things digitally. But digital also makes it easier to steal things. The good news is that digital may also make it easier to track the stealing, which sounds good to me.

I have another little anecdote about this business. That is that the music industry, where this stealing started in such a wholesale way, eventually got around piracy by switching their focus to live concerts. You can take a cellphone and try to record a live concert but it's usually just junk. If you really appreciate the artist, the singer, the songwriter, or the band, you're going to pay the money. You're going to go to the concert. There's no way to cheat on that. The artist actually gets paid for it.

Unfortunately, there is no live performance equivalent of writing a 336-page book. Imagine how long it would take me to stand here and read this to you. Don't get me wrong—this book is a potboiler about earthquakes and it's a science mystery of how we didn't understand this problem. It's also the only Canadian version of this story in print so far that explains exactly what the biggest natural disaster in North America is going to be. In a way, I should be happy that people are stealing my book, because it gets the word out to the public.

On the other hand, if my publisher loses money because of the stealing, there will be no incentive to do this again. In fact, if it becomes the trend, why would they publish anything Canadian?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

So you'll continue with print.

[Jerry Thompson]

Yes, I will continue with print.