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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Matt Jeneroux  Edmonton Riverbend, CPC
Caroline Rioux  President, Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd.
Wendy Noss  President, Motion Picture Association-Canada
Maureen Parker  Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Alain Lauzon  General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada
Martin Lavallée  Director, Licensing and Legal Affairs, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada
Erin Finlay  Chief Legal Officer, Canadian Media Producers Association
Stephen Stohn  President, SkyStone Media, Canadian Media Producers Association
Mike Lake  Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

5:40 p.m.

Director, Licensing and Legal Affairs, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

Martin Lavallée

More specifically, we are talking here about reproduction rights. In the digital world, the value of the work is associated with the server where the copy was originally made. The Copyright Act is unclear in this regard. A person could succeed by arguing that because the reproduction was made in another country, Canadian law does not apply.

We should simply introduce a notion of technological neutrality into the Copyright Act. The current version of the act includes a section on copyright infringement at a later stage, when a copy of a work is produced. If, for example, books are printed elsewhere and imported into Canada, and the authorization was not originally given by the Canadian owner in the other country, that importation is considered copyright infringement. In this case, the word “copy” should simply be replaced by “digital copy”. Suppose a reproduction is placed on a server in a cloud, and the Canadian holder has not given permission at the outset. Since this service primarily serves Canadian consumers, the same recourse should be available. We should be able to argue that Canadian law applies, since the recipients are Canadians.

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much.

Ms. Noss, again you referenced piracy going down. Is that part of the report you're going to be forwarding to us?

5:40 p.m.

President, Motion Picture Association-Canada

Wendy Noss

What I have for you today in French and English is about what we know about piracy. I would be happy to provide a compendium of some of the research that has come out of Europe and those other jurisdictions and provide that to the committee as well.

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Excellent. The goal here is to get stuff on record. Once we have that, our wonderful analysts can do a fantastic job and guide us through this quagmire.

For the final five minutes, we go to Mr. Lake.

5:40 p.m.

Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

Mike Lake

I'm sure your analysts will have no shortage of material to work through with this study.

Mr. Lauzon, you talked about the private copying regime. What specifically is your organization advocating for in that regard?

5:45 p.m.

General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

Alain Lauzon

SODRAC is a member of the private copying regime, and I think last week in front of you the people at the copyright regime, CPCC, came here and explained to you what we wanted related to that. Remember that in 1997 the law for the copyright regime was introduced in Canada.

5:45 p.m.

Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

Mike Lake

Mr. Lauzon, I'll break in for a second. This is my first meeting as a member of this committee, so could you quickly tell me what that looks like from your side.

5:45 p.m.

General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

Alain Lauzon

I'll go in French, okay?

The private copying regime applies to reproductions that are made by consumers but that we cannot control.

In Canada, the private copying regime was introduced in 1997 and targeted physical media, DVDs and cassettes. Subsequently, some people argued that the private copying regime should be technologically neutral, that is, that it should now apply to copies made using telephones or tablets, but the court decided otherwise. Technological neutrality wasn't introduced into the act when it was modernized in 2012 either. All we are asking is that this regime be technologically neutral, so that it also applies to digital media.

Since the act won't be amended for some time, we ask that a compensation fund be created in the interim.

The private copying regime represented $40 million for rights holders. Today, DVD reproductions are down, so that this scheme now represents about $2 million. It is a place where we could truly compensate the loss of income of the rights holders. Over the past six or seven years, rights holders have lost $38 million a year.

5:45 p.m.

Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

Mike Lake

This is that $40 million a year that I was reading about from...?

5:45 p.m.

General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

5:45 p.m.

Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

Mike Lake

Okay.

In answer to an earlier question, you talked about compensating for things people do that they don't know whether they're right or wrong. Is that...?

5:45 p.m.

General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

Alain Lauzon

No. In the CPCC brief that was filed on it, we were only talking about compensated copies that are legal. You have to understand, CMRRA and us, we have a joint venture called CSI. We issued licences for legal....

5:45 p.m.

Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

Mike Lake

The $40 million is to compensate for illegal copying, right?

5:45 p.m.

General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

Alain Lauzon

It's not illegal copies. It's for copies done by the consumer that we are not able to control. The source is not illegal. The source is legal.

5:45 p.m.

Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

Mike Lake

If I buy a CD, let's say, at a flea market or something, and I make a copy on my computer, you're saying that I should have to pay an additional fee for that copy?

5:45 p.m.

General Manager, Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada

Alain Lauzon

Absolutely. In the licence that we issue to iTunes, if you download a song, it will be covered by your licence, and it's not on the computer, it's on the mobiles and the iPads.

What we're looking for is say someone rips a copy or someone takes a copy on the net and downloads it, whether it's a legal source or not, it becomes a copy that is done for which we are not able to issue licences. That's the reason. There's a value related to that, and the private regime is something that is well recognized around all the countries. I can file a study that has been done with the private copying all around the world by CISAC, explaining exactly in each jurisdiction how the law is done, how it's evaluated, and the money that's earned by the copyright owners.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much. That's all she wrote, folks.

I'd like to thank everybody for coming in today. Again, it's very complex. It's not the easiest subject to talk about. There are lots of emotions. The point of this is to get as much as we can on the record. I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today.

For the rest of us, I have great news. We're going to sit during the summertime.

5:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, no!

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

I'm kidding.

I want to let you know that when we come back on September 17, we're going to get a summary from the analysts of what was presented so far on education, publishing, music, film, broadcasting, and TV. We're also going to get a critical analysis of data presented to the committee by the last 100-plus witnesses. We'll spend that first meeting just recapturing everything that we've done.

5:45 p.m.

A voice

It's summer homework.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

We don't have the homework; they have the homework.

Thank you all very much. We are adjourned.