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.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I get that, but that person who wrote one episode took all that work to write that one episode.
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
That's right, and that writer therefore was the author of that episode. It is a collaborative business—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
But he wasn't the author alone. He used other characters. He used the names—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
No. You said that he started with a “blank” sheet of paper. He didn't. These are the names, this is the name of the school, this is the name of the teacher, this is their character, this is the type of words they would say, and this is the language they speak. That person was not in any way the sole creator.
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
May I say that it's a very big business model? Right now, we do have screenwriters who are the ones who develop script material, who create characters, and who've created the setting. In an ongoing series like a Degrassi, yes, obviously there are pre-existing concepts and pre-existing settings, but those are created and worked with in an individual script. The dialogue is individual. The plot is individual. It is—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I understand that, but someone would own the characters, for example, and if it was—
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Right, and that would be the writer of the first script.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay. You would then have to direct and cut a deal with the writer of the first script to write the story for Mr. Stohn...?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
There are character royalties. You'd pay certain royalties, etc. The problem with not defining authorship—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Let's stay with Degrassi as an example. There are 500 that have been written and, over the years, the 500 screenwriters who have written each episode have advanced the characters. Are those 500 going to have to be dealt with individually to be able to...?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Television doesn't work that way. There were probably maybe 50 screenwriters, or maybe 30. Companies go back to the same writers. They use story departments.
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Okay. To your point that there are multiples, absolutely, because there are multiple creators, but each episode is a copyrighted work in and of itself. When Mr. Stohn or a producer like him sells a series, he is selling a group of episodes that are individually copyrighted. When you talk about piracy, you're talking about each individual episode, which may be seen without any compensation.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I have one last question, then.
When you write the actual screenplay for any movie, the ownership and copyright of the screenplay itself remains with the writer. Is that correct?
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay, you just want to expand it, so that it's more than that. You want to own more than just the screenplay.
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
No, we're not expanding it. The current business model—and I cited that in my presentation—and in the only court case that has ever been heard on the topic, the screenwriter and director are the authors. It is the producers who are coming in from a different place.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Ms. Noss, I just have one question for you. You mentioned narrowing the definition of safe harbour. Can you expand on that, please?
5:15 p.m.
President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
Sure. It's built on what we've seen in Europe that has been impactful. When the act was last amended, the piracy threats that existed at that time did not operate in the way that piracy threats of today operate.
This would take the best practices we've seen that have been working around the world, so that if an intermediary, such as an Internet service provider or a search engine, has knowledge that its services are being used to infringe copyright, that intermediary will no longer have the safe harbour. That provides an encouragement to all intermediaries in the system to act responsibly.
The issue today, where global piracy has an operator in one jurisdiction, a hosting site in a second jurisdiction, and a business model that's propped up by a payment processor or an ad network in a third jurisdiction, really has to be addressed in every country effectively. Again, I would point to tools that the government has instituted in the past that have been effective.
Last time, we asked for the enablement provision, so that those who enable infringement would be liable for infringement. What we saw is that with a global piracy problem like Popcorn Time, at the time, there was action in New Zealand and action in Canada based on the enablement provision, and that allowed you to effectively address the problem writ large.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
Now we're going to move on to Mr. Lake. You have five minutes.
5:20 p.m.
Mike Lake Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is a little bit of déjà vu for me. I spent eight years as the parliamentary secretary to the industry minister. It sounds as if we're having pretty much the same meeting that we would have had three or four years ago.
I want to thank you, Ms. Finlay, because any time a witness says, “contrary to what you just heard from” and then names another witness, that makes the meetings much more interesting.
Ms. Parker, in response to that, you talked about us as government, I guess, in a sense, failing to address the question regarding authorship. Is it really a matter of failing to address it, or is it fair to say that it has not been addressed the way your organization would like?
5:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Actually, it has not been addressed, period.
Right now, the way it works is that screenwriters and directors, in the only court case that has ever been brought forward, are considered authors of the audiovisual work. It's actually a problem for you and for copyright holders, because authorship is tied to the life of the author. If you don't define who the author is, whose life is it tied to?
We have heard from many entertainment lawyers. It's a very ambiguous area. Disney, for example, would certainly never let that happen. They would address the copyright term of a character. In Canada, that has not been addressed, so there is confusion. The author is an individual, and we totally appreciate that producers commercially exploit the production, and that is their job, to finance and distribute the production, but they do not create it. I think it's a real flaw in the system to not address authorship.