Evidence of meeting #124 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 piracy.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you.
Ms. Noss, what's the relationship between the MPAC and MPAA?
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
We represent the MPAA companies here in Canada.
Liberal
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
What is the MPAA's and the MPAC's position on net neutrality?
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
On the net neutrality position, I think Minister Bains said it well. It is only dealing with legal content. It has nothing to do with illegal content. From our perspective, the position that we're taking in terms of seeking new tools to fight piracy has nothing to do with net neutrality.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Who operates as the judge, jury, and executioner in your case? If you're saying that there's a site that you allege is a copyright infringer and you have that site taken down, what authority is saying that you are correct?
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
These are to give you the relief in the act to seek injunctions from a court, so the court determines.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
You need a court order for each and every take down and removal of a link.
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
No, we're not talking about notice and take down. We're talking about—
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
You're talking about delisting. It's effectively the same thing on the Internet.
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
We're talking about injunctions against intermediaries and those are obtained from a court. What we're seeking in the legislation is the same thing that they have throughout Europe. It is the French implementation I just read to you, which is the ability to get injunctions against third parties that are in a position to reduce piracy. It's not saying that these third parties, be it the ISP, which is providing connectivity, or the search engine, have liability. It's saying, “You're in a position to help reduce piracy.” We would go to a court, apply for an injunction, and the court would determine the scope of the injunction.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
A number of years ago, the MPAA and RIAA, the recording industry association, went after individuals who were using P2P sites and suing the pants off these poor families. How did that go, what happened, and does that still happen?
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
I'm not sure where you're getting that information, but that's not a position of our company. As I indicated in my statement and reinforced there, and as you heard from Erin, we're looking to address commercial-scale piracy by people who enable infringement in a way that hurts Canadian jobs, Canadian businesses, and the full scope of the creative process.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I could discuss this for quite a while, but I have more questions to offer others.
You mentioned that you have a lot of content by a lot of creators in Canada. That's very useful information to know. I used this example a couple of times in the House and committee. One of my favourite TV shows is called Mayday, made here in Canada. It's available in 144 countries, and it is effectively impossible to get in this country. Can you tell me why? It's a great show if you have a Bell account, but if you don't have a Bell account, you can't get it. It's simply not legal. There's no way to do it.
Chief Legal Officer, Canadian Media Producers Association
I'm sure the producers and creators of Mayday would be thrilled if it were available everywhere, every place that's possible. I can't speak to what the exact example is there.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
It's interesting because you can buy it in Europe and have it shipped to Canada, but then you end up with another problem, which is region-encoded DVDs. If I buy a DVD overseas, it won't work in North American DVD players. If I buy a DVD here, it won't work in a European DVD player. Is that in any way ethical? I ask that openly.
Chief Legal Officer, Canadian Media Producers Association
Is it ethical that you can't...?
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Is it ethical to buy something that is deliberately blocked from working based on where you are?
Chief Legal Officer, Canadian Media Producers Association
Is it ethical to buy something...?
President, SkyStone Media, Canadian Media Producers Association
If I can say, and I don't want to overstep my bounds here. There are different numbers of scan rates and line rates in European television sets—
Liberal
President, SkyStone Media, Canadian Media Producers Association
Yes, which require different encoding for DVDs in the zone 2 regions from the zone 1 regions, is my understanding.