Evidence of meeting #116 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was content.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I want to make sure because we're hearing that number quite a bit.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
If people are following perhaps they want to know.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
A study was done and that's where the 380 million came from. Of that 380 million, the Copyright Board concluded that 60% of that is fair dealing, and therefore not compensable.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
The remaining 40% is compensable. So, in fact, there were 150 million pages that still need to be compensated, but the ministers of education are still refusing to pay that. They're claiming the whole thing under fair dealing, even the amount that the Copyright Board said had to be paid for.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
There's about 150 million pages in outstanding invoices?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
Outstanding payments that they're claiming fair dealing on, 380 million pages in total for elementary/secondary.
In the post-sec sector, we did a study on York University. In that case, as a result of the study that looked at the copies loaded on learning management systems and course packs, we see, on average, 360 pages per student per year being copied.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
When you use all of that data, on a conservative end, you end up with 600 million pages that have been copied and not paid for. These are copies that are not licensed, nor have transactional licences been obtained for them that are not available under open access licences.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Would it be fair to say that as educational age and grade levels increase, that the increasing amount of copyright infringement takes place?
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I don't want to draw assumptions. I'm not going to read the studies.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
So that's where the particular problem lies. Has that increased and is there any data on that since the decision has been in place? Has the behaviour pattern changed with the decision?
I'll put that aside. Has that increased? Has there been a pattern of behaviour or do we know? These questions may not be fair to you, but I'm trying to get a sense of the scope of what's taking place.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
It's hard to tell because we had historical data about what used to be copied, at least part of what used to be copied because before 2013, when they stopped paying, in the post-secondary level they would report to us all copies that were made and included in course packs, in paper course packs.
Today we don't know what gets copied. What we do know is only from the study that we did with York University and in the context of that litigation.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
In that context, 360 pages per student per year were copied.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
That's going to be pretty onerous too, with digital and a series of different format changes that are more dynamic than ever.
With regard to much of the testimony, we've heard—and you've heard today—that an incremental amount of money is being spent on materials. You're mentioning that Canadian publishing firms in Quebec are down. Is this basically what's happening? Are most things being streamed to three to five publishing conglomerates? Is that really what's taking place or are they not telling the full story here, that their cost for publications is actually going up?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
Based on what I heard in their testimonies—and they're in a better position to tell you how much they spend—they are increasing spending on journal articles. This is research material, by and large, not instructional material.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Access Copyright
The material that tends to get copied and used in class for instruction is different from the material that is used for research. That's where you get the science, technical, and medical journal publishers. The five big multinational publishers are in that category. The licences that they have through CRKN are for the STM, science, technical, and medical journals. What gets copied and no longer paid for is the educational content, the trade content, the stuff that is used for instructional purposes.
Like what Frédérique mentioned about the experience in Quebec, and in the rest of Canada as well, what we saw historically was that, of the copies that they used to make and report to us, only about 15% was from STM, science, technical, and medical journals. The rest was books, and that doesn't tend to be licensed through university libraries.
Liberal
