Industry Committee on June 19th, 2018

[Stephen Stohn]

Clearly, I think all of us would say that we would love one single standard. That would be the ideal.

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

It's not a standards issue. It's a cryptographic issue.

There are eight different codes. You put it on a different code for this region. If it's NTSC or PAL, which are just two standards—not eight standards—algorithmically, they can be converted very easily. There's no technical reason to do that. It is a pure copyright TPM protection system. If I sold a bottle of water, for example, and said that you could drink it only in Europe and not in America, would that be ethical?

[Stephen Stohn]

It doesn't make any commercial sense to me. I would think that people would be quite happy to sell in either territory and have a single standard.

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

That sounds wonderful, but it's not actually the case.

[Erin Finlay]

I think we have to be realistic about how rights are managed around the world. Certain buyers and distributors acquire rights for certain territories. That's the way it currently works. Again, every producer and every creator would be happy to have their content available all around the world provided they're able to negotiate that.

As to your question about whether it's ethical or not, I think where you got to was whether it's an infringement of copyright and the breaking of the TPM. I think that's perhaps what we're talking about.

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

If I had more time, we could get into it more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Unfortunately, you don't.

Thank you very much.

[Erin Finlay]

We'll do it in our written submission.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Lloyd, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you. My first question will be between Ms. Noss and Ms. Finlay.

In regard to piracy, it's been several years since I've seen commercials on television about piracy, about how downloading a movie or recording a movie in a theatre is theft. If this committee were to recommend that the government engage with further activity on the piracy front, what areas would you suggest we focus on?

[Wendy Noss]

As I said, we're seeking new tools and are certainly happy to provide any further information to this committee in terms of the legislative tools that we think are important.

We also think that educating the public is important. As I said, we consider that part of what we'd like to do in terms of helping to reduce the problem, so certainly anything the government could do to participate in that.... I know that the U.K. government, for example, has put a great deal of time and money into trying to educate the public there about the importance of—

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

Do you know how much that campaign cost the U.K. government?

[Wendy Noss]

I don't offhand, but I'd be happy to provide you with.... There is an online link. It's called “Get It Right from a Genuine Site” or something like that.

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

Do you know if there was an industry partner in that project financially, or was it purely the government?

[Wendy Noss]

There are a bunch of different ones. Again, I'm using that as an example, but what I'm happy to do is to provide you with a couple of different examples of education campaigns that have been undertaken by the public authorities. The U.K. IP office has another of their own. Again, we think that's an important piece, particularly because the risks to the privacy of consumers are so great.

Legislative tools are really key. I think one instructive example would be the camcording problem you referenced. It was not that many years ago that there was a problem with illegal camcording in Canada. The laws weren't clear, and you had a lot of people who said, “Don't do anything.” They said there was no proof that it was a real problem and no proof that piracy was having an impact on people in Canada. They said that making a law wasn't going to change anything and that people would still do it.

Guess what. In the committee of the whole, the Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc all supported legislation that provided a clear rule that when you camcord illegally in a movie theatre it is against the law, and there was an immediate and long-standing impact. Previously, Canadian camcorders were the illegal source of between 20% and 24% of movies that were still in the theatres. Two years subsequent to the enactment of that legislation in Canada, it's been less than 1% every year.

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

Thank you. That's important information for our committee.

My next question is more for you, Ms. Finlay, or Mr. Stohn. In regard to the copyright provisions and whether the screenwriters or the producers are the creators, I hope you can give me as balanced an answer as possible on this. How do you think it would affect the business model if we were to recommend that screenwriters be treated more as creators and have further copyright protections under the act?

[Erin Finlay]

Perhaps I'll start with the broader perspective, and then Stephen can talk about the business model specifically.

Here's something to keep in mind. The suggestion that recognizing the directors and screenwriters as authors or first owners of copyright wouldn't upend the market, I find troubling. These arrangements have been negotiated in collective agreements for years—decades—by very strong and effective unions like the one Maureen works for. All of the ownership and the assignments and the exclusive licences are covered by those collective agreements, including all of the royalty streams flowing back through to screenwriters, directors, actors, and everyone else.

I wanted to start from that sort of high-level perspective. Maybe Stephen can talk about how it would affect his business model.

[Stephen Stohn]

Our financiers and our distributors want to deal with the copyright owner.

The producer is the one who has taken the initial economic risk. It was colourful, Maureen, what you said about going downstairs in your dressing gown and writing a script, but years before that, the producer had an idea, was hiring people to develop that, taking the economic risk, approaching a broadcaster or distributor to get some seed money to get them invested in the project, and carrying that through until there was an ultimate product that could be marketed.

That product can only be marketed by the copyright owner. Our biggest single market, of course, is the United States, and our American friends just don't understand any concept other than dealing with the copyright owner and the producer owning the copyright.

It is true that the screenwriters in Canada own the copyright in their screenplays. There's a certain logic to it. We may agree or disagree on that, but they have gone downstairs in their slippers and created that screenplay. However, the producer has worked over the years to turn that—and to work with hundreds of other people—into creating a product that is commercialized by the copyright owner. That's really what we drive at.

If for some reason it was decided that it was important to convey copyright ownership on someone who didn't do all that work, we'd have to somehow as an industry get around that by entering into contracts that convey the copyright to the producer. Otherwise, how is the producer going to commercialize the product in the end? It just doesn't make any sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

[Maureen Parker]

Can I address the end of that question, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We still have some time, but I need to get the questions moving.

Mr. Baylis, you have five minutes.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I'll follow up on that and continue with that line of questioning.

If I'm writing a brand new screenplay, a new movie that doesn't exist, I get that there's a lot more of the copyright that would go to the director and the screenplay. We can use Mr. Stohn's example of Degrassi. The screenwriter of an episode will not develop the backstory. They won't develop the characters, the sets, or the setting. The people who develop those are as much part of the creative process, if not more so, that someone who just writes one episode. Would you agree or not?

[Maureen Parker]

I don't agree because it's actually an incorrect premise.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You don't agree. In your case, the person who came up with the backstory—

[Maureen Parker]

That is a writer. That was not Mr. Stohn. That was created by a writer.