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.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
We are going to go right into questioning,
Mr. Baylis, you have seven minutes.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Chair. I won't be moving a motion.
Ms. Peets, you brought up something that we haven't heard before. We have heard a lot about the writers seeing their income going down, but you brought up a point about some challenges between the writers and the publishers.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You felt that there's an imbalance. Is that part of what is chewing into your income, these contracts that they said they force you to sign?
4 p.m.
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
Yes, it does. I can only claim work to which I still own copyright, for my Access Copyright payment, for example. If the publisher has taken all of the copyright and the moral rights, then I no longer have the right to that material. Therefore, I cannot put it into my repertoire for my Access Copyright payment.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
What would you like to see the government do about that?
4 p.m.
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
That's why I said that I think the contracts are beyond the scope of this committee, but the copyright laws could be strengthened so that publishers no longer can ask for those rights, that those rights remain with the author.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
That might sound like a good idea today, but would it not add something like Nancy brought up, cause problems for someone who may wish to do it and cannot do it?
Would you have something to add to that, Ms. Marrelli?
4 p.m.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
I wouldn't dare to comment on the writers. It seems like she's better placed to....
4 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
If you were, as an archivist, or someone who wanted to purchase all the rights.... Say we were to do what you're asking and write a law that you can't sell all your rights. Would that not impact—
4 p.m.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
Certainly, in terms of archival matters, knowing the actual status of the copyright is very important when something is deposited into an archive. That's why it becomes an issue. That's where the contractual agreements definitely come in.
The contractual agreements that any creator has have to be part of their archival deposit.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I'll go back to you, Ms. Peets. If we were to say that you cannot sell your rights to a publisher and someone wants to.... I don't see how that could work, to be honest.
4:05 p.m.
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
I'm not saying that the writer can't sell the rights to the publisher should they wish to, or can't enter into any other kind of contract with their right. What I'm asking is to make sure that the right to do as they wish with their work remains with the creator.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
If I understand you, your publisher said, “This is a deal that I'm forcing on you.” Maybe you could elucidate that for me. You could have said, “I don't want the deal.”
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
If you say you don't want the deal, then you lose your publisher.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I still am at a loss to see what recommendation you'd like us to do in the Copyright Act to stop them from strong-arming you. There's an imbalance of power, I get that, but....
4:05 p.m.
President, Professional Writers Association of Canada
Yes. I wish I could say that this could be legislated, but I don't think it can be. The only thing is to make the copyright laws strong enough that the publisher wouldn't then think that they can ask for that right. I think the way it's written now is perhaps a little weaker, and that's why the publishers have looked at that and said, “Yes, we want all of these rights.” If the copyright laws were strengthened so that the publishers wouldn't look at that and ask for those rights.... I don't know what else you could do.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay. Thank you.
I'll move to Ms. Marrelli about the question of crown copyright.
On this topic, if it becomes readily available, it's one thing, and you're saying that if it's not published, it never becomes available after 50 years. How would you know about it, then? You want access to it and it's not published. How do you know it exists?
4:05 p.m.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
That's one of the issues. In archives, we certainly increasingly want to make materials available digitally. We have materials. We have a lot of these materials in the archives. People come to our reading rooms, but where people want to access archival materials now is on the Internet.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Special Advisor, Copyright, Canadian Council of Archives
We have to get permissions. In fact, recently, the government has changed the way permissions for crown copyright have come about. It's devolved not to a single, centralized source but to the departmental source where the material was created.