Industry Committee on May 24th, 2018

[Cynthia Andrew]

For collective licences it is. For licensing, I would suggest it is not. I think we do pay for licensing, and I do think we pay for reproduction rights.

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

Who is being paid for that?

[Cynthia Andrew]

In some cases, it's a distributor of an online database. It is the creator of a repository. Provincial governments, when they do material portals, will often pre-clear all of the materials that go on those portals and, where payment is required, will make that payment. This happens at board levels, at provincial levels.

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

Prior to 2012 you were paying a collective licence, and after 2012 you're no longer paying a collective licence, so would you say there's any correlation with the loss of revenue for Access Copyright?

[Cynthia Andrew]

I think the loss of revenue for Access Copyright can be attributed to many different types of changes.

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

If you're not paying them, that's lost revenue for them. Is that correct? It seems kind of obvious.

[Cynthia Andrew]

I think if we were paying them, they would have that revenue, yes. Who wouldn't have it would be the same creators only in a different area. They wouldn't be getting it through these other areas.

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

It seems there's a direct correlation between the K-12s not paying the collective licensing and then the authors not receiving the royalties for their costs. Authors are hurting because K-12s aren't paying for the copyright. Is that correct?

[Cynthia Andrew]

I would suggest that most of the purchasing that happened in K-12 sections was through educational publishers, and very little of it went to individual authors, but, yes, there would be some impact.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

My next line of questioning is for Mr. Ramsankar.

Thank you for your testimony. Would you say that previous to 2012, teachers had a hard time accessing copyrighted works to give to their students? Has there been a significant change since 2012 for the on-the-ground teacher?

[H. Mark Ramsankar]

For the on-the-ground teacher, when you're speaking about access to copyrighted material, it has to be defined. If you're talking about textbooks and textbook material, that's provided by the employer. The individual teacher who is using resources in the classroom would be using material that would be in the form of articles, individual novels, and that sort of thing, which a school may produce.

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

Were they having trouble before 2012 accessing those resources you just mentioned?

[H. Mark Ramsankar]

I want to be careful in how I say this, because for the bulk of my career, I've been focusing on resourcing schools and classrooms. That takes many different forms. It takes the form of time and material as well as the ability to produce materials on their own for classrooms.

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

Was there a big difficulty in accessing files before 2012?

[H. Mark Ramsankar]

Teachers did not have issues accessing materials that were provided by the employer.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

My final 45 seconds is for Ms. Marshall.

I really appreciate your testimony. I'm going to rant a little bit here, because a lot of universities have not been able to provide us with the data. You said you used 3,200 works, with 250 that have been used through fair dealing. I really appreciate receiving that breakdown, because that's the kind of accountability that I think a lot of the stakeholders want to see from the universities so that we can dispel the confusion around this issue.

Your fear of having to pay $26 going years back is such a huge fear. Would you say it would be better for the Copyright Board to be more forward-looking and to set rates over the next five years so that you can have predictability and stability in your funding and in what you need to pay?

[Dru Marshall]

Yes.

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

You would say yes, that's something you'd like to do.

[Dru Marshall]

Yes. I think there's a fear across the country in post-secondary institutions about any retroactivity, particularly when we think we've been managing copyright in an appropriate fashion.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Jowhari.

You have five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

Mr. Ramsankar, I'm going to start with you. In your opening remarks, you made a comment, and I'm not going to quote you, but my understanding of it is that the need in the classroom has changed and Access Copyright is not in the classroom and they don't understand the change in that need and the complexity of today's need to be able to help the children in the class from K to 12. Can you expand on that and explain to me why Access Copyright doesn't understand that? What has changed? Until last year, I had a K-to-12 student, and he was still using textbooks.

[H. Mark Ramsankar]

The variety of material that is used, in a teacher's view, needs to be accessible. However, the use and dissemination of that will change depending on the nature of the students in the classroom.

When I talk about the change in the classroom, I'm talking about the demographics within the classroom and children who have needs that go beyond the norm. Teachers need to have the flexibility to be able to alter and work with the material to meet the individual needs of a child.

For example, if you have a student in grade 3 who is reading at a grade 3 level, there are certain approaches and strategies teachers will be able to use. If the same classroom has students who are reading at a grade 1 level, then the same material, because it's part of the curriculum, has to be disseminated differently. It has to be broken down. It has to be created in such a way that the child at that level will be able to understand the concepts being taught.

When I talk about understanding what it's like to be in the classroom, I am suggesting that the idea of just doing blanket material and having blanket licences that are the same for all, because you're purchasing the material, doesn't necessarily work in all scenarios, because you're not able to take one type of material and then just apply it to today's classroom.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Andrew, you said that Access Copyright is using anecdotal numbers, and they really haven't been able to clearly demonstrate in a court of law that there is actually infringement in reproduction. They were here on Tuesday and shared some numbers with us. The claim they made is that 600 million pages are copied for free. They said they've had an 89% reduction in their royalties. Can you expand on where you think those numbers might be coming from?

[Cynthia Andrew]

I think I would like to know as much as you would where that figure of 600 million copies comes from, quite frankly. I'm not sure where it came from. I'm not sure if it's K to 12 only or if it includes post-secondary copies as well. If there are 600 million copies per year, and if there are five million students, that's 120 copies per student per year.

That makes how much per month? In 10 months, that makes six copies per student per month. I'm getting that wrong. My math is not my strong suit. Anyway, it makes for a low enough number that to me this does not demonstrate industrial copying, if you will, or widespread copying. It means that teachers are copying short excerpts, like the Supreme Court said they were.