Evidence of meeting #119 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 materials.
A video is available from Parliament.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
Exactly. It's no longer centralized.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
First of all, I think there's no reason to have perpetual copyright anymore for crown materials. Making it 50 years from the date of creation is a reasonable first accommodation.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
Yes, and I think that we then need to look at some of the more problematic areas, and I think we do need a proper.... There have been many different studies, but I think we need a current look at the issues, and we need to bring the stakeholders together to try to solve this problem, which definitely has solutions. Other jurisdictions have—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
My time is up, but I'm sure my colleague will continue on that front.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you for being good about it.
Mr. Bernier, go ahead for seven minutes.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being with us.
My first question would be for Ms. Christine Peets.
You said during your presentation that your income changes a lot. Can you explain that a little more? Do you think that you're a specific case or does it also happen with other authors and creators in Canada?
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
Yes, it has happened with a number of our members. I'm specifically referring to their Access Copyright payments.
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
They have reported that they have gone down significantly, in some cases as much as 50%. This is due to the fact that they are losing the copyright to their works. They are being asked to sign over the copyright to particular works, so they lose that copyright and can no longer claim that work.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Should a Canadian author be able to reclaim his or her copyright before his or her death by terminating its transfer of licensing? Do you agree with that?
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
Yes. Again, the author should be able to determine where and to whom the copyright goes and for what period of time.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Do you think we need to make a change in our legislation to be able to do that in Canada?
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
Currently, it's 50 years after the death of the author. Most of my colleagues felt that was fair. I understand there is some consideration of going to 70 years, which would be acceptable as well.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Thank you.
We will now hear from the Canadian Council of Archives.
Ms. Marelli, regarding the digital lot, you said it's something that we may improve. What is your...?
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
The anti-circumvention rules came in with the 2012 amendments to the act, and at the time there were many requests to make exceptions for the anti-circumvention laws. In fact, there were very few exceptions that are in the law.
For sure, I remember testifying to a committee exactly like this for the 2012 act that there was a problem for archives in not being able to circumvent a digital lock to carry out essential preservation activities For us, that is the issue. It's something we are allowed to do in the act, but because it sometimes involves circumvention of a digital lock, we cannot carry out that essential function. We are losing essential historical materials because we cannot circumvent in order to carry out an otherwise allowed act.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Will you ask for a change in our legislation to give you an exception?
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
Yes. If there is an allowable act in the Copyright Act, we would ask that we be allowed to do circumvention in order to perform it.
Liberal
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.
I have been asking witnesses about the Copyright Board. What I am concerned about is that we get this review done and then the minister is going to respond to the review. Then, if there were some significant changes, it's most likely to come with a suggestion or legislation, which would require, in my opinion, more consultations. We're just getting a little bit of feedback now on the change process, but nothing specific has been offered up at this time. We could end up running out of time before the next electoral cycle.
Is there anything that could be done in the short term through the regulatory process or through improving the Copyright Board decision-making process and the enforcement process that would be beneficial at this time? I am looking for those things that perhaps would be through the lens of a regulatory approach versus that of a legislative approach, because the regulatory approach is a matter of the minister's decision and discretion.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
The Copyright Board deals with published materials. Since archival materials for the most part are unpublished materials, our materials are not covered by the Copyright Board, so we don't have a lot to say about the Copyright Board.
I know that the process has been criticized for being very long and complicated. Certainly, we have issues around orphan works in archives. There have been some suggestions to include published materials as well as unpublished materials under the Copyright Board. I'm not sure that adding the burden of unpublished materials to the Copyright Board is the way to go for orphan works. I guess my answer, in terms of archives, is that I don't have any concrete suggestions, but I wouldn't recommend adding unpublished materials to the Copyright Board mandate at this point.