Industry Committee on May 24th, 2018

[Dru Marshall]

Yes.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Do all of you see a significant difference in behaviour between educators of different generations—I'll put it that way—with regard to who uses digital and who uses traditional paper materials? As a new generation of educators is coming up, are they not looking at paper?

[Dru Marshall]

I'll give a quick answer.

At the universities right now, we are dealing with students who are digital natives, so you ignore digital content at your own risk when you're a professor.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's fair.

You mentioned earlier that there are sanctions for non-compliance in your processes.

[Dru Marshall]

Yes.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

How do those work? What are the sanctions?

I'll give you the opportunity to look in detail at the example you mentioned in your opening. It's a good chance to do that.

[Dru Marshall]

I have our policy here. I'll read the sanctions for people who are out of step with our policy:

Employees and post-doctoral fellows who use material protected by copyright in violation of this policy may be subject to formal disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Has that happened?

[Dru Marshall]

It's very, very serious. It has not happened, but we certainly have had sanctions before.

For the students:

Students who use material protected by copyright in violation of this policy may be disciplined under the Non-Academic Misconduct Policy—

—which allows for expulsion from the university.

As I said at the beginning, we take this very seriously. We take an educative approach in the first instance. For the first offence we say, “Here are the things you must be aware of.” When we find something that has happened, we go back to ensure that authors are appropriately provided with the dollars that they should have been in the first place.

I am happy to give you an example of fair dealing, or of e-books versus the print copy costs, if you'd like.

Which one would you like?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Why stop at one?

[Dru Marshall]

Okay.

Let's go e-book versus print costs. Because we're a digital library, e-books are purchased whenever possible and when available. We look at the cost of a multi-user e-book. It's often less than a transactional licensing fee and it doesn't limit access to students enrolled in only one course.

For example, licensing of two chapters of the book, Oil: A Beginner's Guide, 2008—this is an important book in Alberta right now—by Vaclav Smil, for a class of 410 students would cost the library $2,463 in U.S. currency. In contrast, the cost of an unlimited licence for three e-book versions would be $29.90 through Ebook Central, and the book would be available to all library users.

That's, in many cases, why we've gone digital.

I would say, similarly, the cost of licensing two chapters from the book, Negotiations in a Vacant Lot: Studying the Visual in Canada, by Lynda Jessup, et al, for a class of 60 students would be $414 Canadian, while the cost of an unlimited licence on Ebook Central would be $150 U.S.

There is a tremendous difference in these costs. We use those, and we also are dealing with the needs of our students, who want the material digitally. They prefer to do that. Our professors are very conscious of ensuring that students are getting materials in such a way that they're going to use them.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I appreciate that.

To all of you, the Copyright Modernization Act five years ago was famous for bringing in TPM exemptions to copyright. I'm wondering how that affects you, if at all. Those are the technological protection measures. If you have a digital lock, fair dealing no longer applies.

[H. Mark Ramsankar]

In terms of the teachers we're looking at, we don't have the ability to unlock. You're using one piece of material at one time. It's not like you can unlock it and then go through it. That's the experience I've had with the teachers in our systems.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Is there a lot of material they're just not accessing as a result of that?

[H. Mark Ramsankar]

That is the result. Teachers don't have the time, by and large, to start trying to unlock things and figure out how to use one specific material. If it's not accessible, they're moving on.

[Dru Marshall]

I think this is a really important area for this committee to pay attention to.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's why I brought it up.

[Dru Marshall]

Let me give you an example. We purchased not long ago a variety of CDs. This is how rapidly the technology changes. Now, of course, people want to stream the material live in their classrooms. If we want to do that, we have to pay for a new licence for exactly the same material. It's interesting; while the digital revolution has been absolutely spectacular in terms of teaching and research, this is a new age, and I think the copyright laws have to be updated to help us manage.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I'm out of time, but if I have a chance later, I'd like to come back to that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cannings, you have two minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Ms. Marshall, you mentioned other collectives that you're part of. Is there a place for a national collective like Access Copyright? If there is, how should it be designed?

[Dru Marshall]

That's a fantastic question. One of the values I think we hold near and dear as a country is choice. It seems odd to me that we would force institutions like ours to make one choice around something that is really important from an educational perspective. We have to balance the rights of creators and users.

I'll leave it at that. I would hate to be forced into something when you know there are alternatives that might be better for particular institutions. I don't think it's fair to say one size fits all.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Is there no way that a new Access Copyright could be designed so that there was that flexibility?

[Dru Marshall]

It's possible, but I think you'd have to look at that very carefully. There would probably be sliding scales of cost, depending on what people would want to do. I think Access Copyright took some very draconian steps to try to protect users, and the associated decreased author fees, with a number of things that actually were fallacious. I would say that decreased author fees are more associated with the digital revolution than with fair dealing, for example.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Do either of you want to comment quickly on that?