Industry Committee on May 11th, 2018

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

I think there is consensus across the board that the inclusion of education has significantly reduced the costs for universities, which could be a public policy good, depending on your perspective on this issue.

What would be your comment on Mr. Lorimer's very interesting suggestion that we redefine education as an individual right? If professors want to access copyrighted material, that's fine. If students want to access copyrighted material under fair use, that's fine. But it would be limited so that an institution couldn't mass-produce materials for educational purposes. What would be your comment on that?

[Susan Parker]

It would depend, for me at least, on how that would be managed. Many of our students aren't necessarily capable of paying any access rights that they might have to negotiate.

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

Presumably they wouldn't have to pay, though, because they would be covered as an individual under fair use.

[Susan Parker]

Yes.

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

It would be that as an institution, you couldn't mass-produce documents. What would be your comment on that?

[Susan Parker]

I think that would probably put a very different spin on it compared to what it is now.

In the United States more and more people are talking about this. Every time you touch it, there's a question about fair use. I think there are going to be more and more different opinions about what that is, and more and more conflict. Instead of an educational institution trying to manage it according to our understanding and in a consistent way, now you will have every actor individually in the institution trying to do so.

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

That's interesting.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Sheehan, you have seven minutes.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much, again, for the thought-provoking discussion.

I'm going back to Kim.

You pointed to some very specific things for change, which is good, and we've recorded those. I'm trying to wrap my head around the difference between the law library that you're involved with, your association, and, let's say, the B.C. Library Association. How are you different? What specifically in the copyright legislation is different, from your point of view, from what it is for a regular library?

[Kim Nayyer]

Many of our libraries would be libraries as defined in the Copyright Act, but I think some of them would not be. For example, large law firms and small law firms have libraries. They're not able to take advantage of the library provisions in the act, because I don't think they meet the definition of not-for-profit organizations, in most cases. Again, the range of membership is very broad, from very small law firms, to middle-sized law associations or law societies, to very large law firms, to university law libraries, and the interests can really vary among them.

One thing we always bear in mind is that we have quite a positive and constructive relationship with our publishers. Again, some of our members are publishers, and many of our law faculty and lawyers across the country are authors who publish works with those publishers. We always have to bear in mind our own organization's interests. It's quite a balance.

As far as interests are concerned, was your question about how our libraries interact with copyright?

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

It was about the difference between how you would see copyright and how a regular library or library association would. You went down that path a bit, so it was good.

We've heard different witnesses advocate for the elimination of crown copyright. Do you agree with this recommendation, and if so, why or why not?

[Kim Nayyer]

I don't have a strong view that crown copyright should be eliminated. I have not investigated it that much myself, but I have had conversations with other law librarians who are a lot more familiar with crown copyright than I am, and they assert that there is good reason for maintaining crown copyright over certain subjects. However, I do think crown copyright over primary law, and particularly case law, is not helpful in furthering the work we can do in Canada.

One example is CanLII, the legal information provider. It is able to make case law and legislation available to all Canadians for free, but it has to rely on agreements with courts. I can't supply it with all my books and say to go ahead and digitize them and take out the proprietary content from the publisher, because that's not seen as permissible right now.

There's so much more we can do. I think it's really in the interest of the country as a whole to see that part of crown copyright no longer included. It enables us to keep that information public and open, as opposed to it being controlled by publishers that may have deep pockets and large international connections, and to have the ability to go further with digital content to create more resources and tools. We don't want to tie ourselves to the for-profit international industry, when we could have the ability to create wonderful things locally in Canada with open access to the raw data that forms public law.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I had a question about CanLII, and you've talked about that. You have a positive opinion of it, then.

[Kim Nayyer]

Do you mean as far as crown copyright itself is concerned?

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I mean in general. That's a free online legal reporter, right?

[Kim Nayyer]

Yes. I have a positive opinion of CanLII.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Okay.

Rowland, thank you for your testimony. I'm just trying to pull out specifics about the copyright legislation as it is and how it has changed. This is a statutory review, which happens every five years, so we're listening. Do you have a top priority to change within that copyright law, or do you feel it's okay as is?

[Dr. Rowland Lorimer]

No, we don't feel it's okay as is. Specifically, I made the point about educational institutions taking the education fair dealing right as an individual right for readers and basically making the material available again. They're republishing it inside course management systems. We think that goes way beyond what the act intended, and we think it is absolutely critical to change.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

It's that specific piece. That's what we heard.

[Dr. Rowland Lorimer]

Yes.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Susan, I'll ask you the same question. What is your top priority?

[Susan Parker]

The Supreme Court of Canada decisions and Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, improved things for the educational sector all over. It says that teachers are there to facilitate students' research and private study. The teachers' purpose in providing copies to students is to enable them to have the material they need. The Supreme Court characterizes teachers as sharing this symbiotic purpose with the student or the user who engages in private study, so it's really not an individual act all the time. On the basis of that, the Supreme Court has said that the fair dealing exception lets teachers make copies. Again, it's based on that symbiotic relationship in the act that happens within education, which is different from an act that happens when an individual person interacts with materials.

I would say that my priority is probably to make sure that we don't change the law so that educational institutions are beholden to a third party to pay certain fees automatically.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Is that it for time? Somebody will probably ask the last presenter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

We're going to Mr. Jeneroux.

You have seven minutes, unless you want to give him your time.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I do not, Mr. Chair.

Let's go back to the questions I was asking earlier. Mr. Bell was at the table. I don't know if he wants to return or not. I'll pose the questions to you, Ms. Parker, for the time being.

You mentioned that you're paying Access Copyright. The question was how you are paying Access Copyright, directly or indirectly. You said that you are paying Access Copyright for course packs.