My name is Susan Parker, and I'm the University Librarian at the University of British Columbia, and I'd like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak before you today. With me today is Allan Bell, associate university librarian for digital programs and services at UBC; and Michael Serebriakov, legal counsel in the Office of the University Counsel.
UBC is a global centre for research and teaching, consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities in the world. We are Canadian authors and publishers as well, publishing material through UBC Press and other publications. The UBC library is the largest academic library in British Columbia, and one of the two largest in western Canada. In 2017, our total acquisitions budget was close to $17 million. That is $17 million spent each year on purchasing and licensing Canadian and international content in various formats, from print materials, which comes to about 20% of the total, to various kinds of digital content making up the other 80%.
I am here to reinforce the following message:
We are focused on fairly compensating content creators and their publishers to foster and support the creation of the best resources for our students and faculty so that they may achieve excellence in learning, research, engagement, fostering global citizenship, and advancing a sustainable and just society. These resources are increasingly digital resources, and they provide enhanced educational features such an enhanced content, embedded collaboration tools, and access 24-7.
As the digital industry inexorably grows, paper-based publishers are seeing their industry erode. The international trend is clear. Paper resources cannot compete with digital, and this is independent of fair dealing or the Supreme Court's 2012 confirmation that fair dealing for private studies applies to the educational context. Even before 2012, UBC was buying fewer and fewer paper resources. Our faculty members are distributing fewer paper copies and making fewer paper course packs, and our students are demanding more digital content.
The plight of Canadian authors and publishers is very real. Many of the most prolific content creators are members of our own academy, so we are mindful of the importance of a copyright system that fosters the dissemination of content for the benefit of society and simultaneously creates the right incentives for creators. Eliminating or restricting user rights, or imposing extremely onerous statutory damages for infringement, will not reverse the digital revolution, nor will it restore the viability of the business model of paper-based publishers and their collective agencies.
What it will do is several things. It will increase the costs of an already increasingly outmoded format, which will only accelerate the transition to digital course material. It will hurt authors and publishers as they, too, exercise user rights extensively. It will likely have unintended consequences in the digital sphere where user rights are a necessary counterweight to restricted forms of use that are imposed upon users, including a digital lock that may threaten to keep all content behind a paywall, and the undue bargaining powers that statutory damages will grant to collective societies.
UBC's request is for Parliament to defer action on user rights. There are several important court and Copyright Board decisions that should be allowed to play out now. The market is already developing its own market-based solutions to what may appear to be an intractable problem. For example, large-scale subscription arrangements are being floated like those that have revitalized the music and television industries. Instead, Parliament needs to use this opportunity to support a robust public domain. The public domain refers to the body of works where the author has waived copyright, or where the copyright term has expired. Currently, the term of copyright is the life of the author plus 50 years. To put this in perspective, a work published when the author is age 30, and that author lives to age 90, is protected under copyright for 110 years after its creation. That is more than adequate time for the author, heirs, and publisher to benefit from the work.
Realistically, of course, most copyright works have little or no commercial value—this testimony, for example—or exhausts the commercial value relatively quickly. To support a robust public domain, we urge Parliament to do two things: first, to reject calls to further extend the term of copyright by an additional 20 years; and second, to develop a means by which libraries and archives may empower researchers, educators, and the public to utilize and disseminate what are called orphan works.
Orphan works are works that are protected by copyright, but the current copyright owner is unknown or cannot be found, the author has passed away, or the original publisher is defunct, and it's unclear who has the rights. There is a debate about how to address this issue, and I stand here to ask this committee to have the debate and to resolve to act.
Libraries across Canada are full of important works that demonstrate the richness and diversity of Canadian culture and scholarship. Parliament has the power to create a system that ensures that Canadians can fairly and respectfully tap into a rich source of Canadian content.
In closing, I ask you to please keep your eyes on the horizon and ensure that, whatever you do, you're facilitating progress and innovation rather than seeking to bolster any particular industry or format. The world has changed. We can't turn back the clock.
Thank you very much.