Evidence of meeting #128 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 copyright.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
As Dave said, some of the servers that are feeding illegal set-top boxes are located domestically. Where they have been located domestically, we've pursued a judicial remedy.
The larger-scale operations, something such as The Pirate Bay, which is a well-known pirate stream available all over the world, are located offshore.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
I don't know exactly. The Pirate Bay moves around. It has been in various jurisdictions.
4:35 p.m.
Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC
What are the top two or three countries? With the call centres, we know that India is a huge problem, and the RCMP has been working with India and law enforcement authorities to shut this down.
Where are these streaming servers located?
4:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
My colleague might have some specific information for you.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
The point is that they are located offshore, and to Mr. Lametti's question, that makes it difficult to use traditional judicial remedies to find that defendant and enforce against them on an expedited basis and an effective basis.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Legal Counsel, BCE Inc.
We should take that away and provide some information that's more precise about where we're seeing them commonly.
4:35 p.m.
Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC
Okay.
In your second recommendation, you're suggesting that we increase public enforcement of copyright, using domestic law enforcement agencies to actively pursue people infringing on copyright. The government announced some $116 million for a new national cybercrime unit run by the RCMP that will work with international law enforcement agencies to pursue these kinds of infractions. Are you suggesting that's not a good approach or that the government doesn't have them up and running yet or that another approach needs to be taken?
We're here to hear your suggestions on this.
4:35 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
It's a good initiative if it makes commercial copyright infringement a priority. That has always been the issue, that copyright infringement is lower down on the enforcement food chain. Given the scale it has grown to and given who's engaged in it, organized crime in some instances, if this initiative were to make it a priority, then it would be a useful tool and consistent with our recommendation.
4:35 p.m.
Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC
There was a report this week in the news that the RCMP has fallen behind on the pursuit of digital criminals. It doesn't give us, at least me, great confidence that this issue is going to be dealt with expeditiously. With 15% of all people now getting their stuff through these set-top boxes, these cloned Android or other clone set-top boxes, I'm not sure we're going to be able to catch up to this emerging trend. It's all very concerning.
4:40 p.m.
Director, Copyright and Broadband, Rogers Communications Inc.
To that, I just want to add that, in order to engage the RCMP and to engage federal agencies, there has to be a very clear basis in law. We have spoken with the CBSA and the RCMP about this problem in particular. What we hear back from them is that they're not always clear that the jurisdiction exists for them to engage in this particular type of problem, just on the mechanics involved and distribution and the like. I think increased involvement by federal law enforcement is great, but it has to be buttressed by that criminal prohibition in the Copyright Act or in an act that makes it clear that they have the jurisdiction to investigate and to prosecute these crimes because they're against the law.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses.
I want to pick up where some of my colleagues went to the edge and left it there. It's about tracking the content or identifying the content. I understand there's some technology available that would enable you to determine what the content is and what type of content is being used.
I want to start by asking the following question. Are there any instances where the ISP providers are legally obliged to monitor their services for the type of content that's going through what you call your "pipes”?
4:40 p.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory and Carrier Affairs, TekSavvy Solutions Inc.
No. There's no specific content that we're required to track or log.
4:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory, Rogers Communications Inc.
It's the same answer.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Shaw has the same answer too. Okay.
Given the fact that there is technology available, can you give me a sense of how that technology can be used to track, in the case of offshore providers of illegal content, and what it is that stops us from blocking them, or stops you or your organization from blocking them? They wouldn't fall under our jurisdiction. Or am I simplifying this too much?
4:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
I think you're identifying the problem that we're confronting. As an ISP, we act as a carrier or a pipeline, so for us to be able to do something about the content that rides along that pipe, we need some form of authorization. So in the case—
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Do you really need that authorization if they're offshore and they're not within our jurisdiction?
4:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
Under the Telecommunications Act we would still need that authorization from the CRTC to essentially block that content.
If a pirate stream is coming from Romania, for example, and we could identify it and we just took it upon ourselves to block it, we would arguably be in breach of our common carrier requirements. That's why we're in front of the CRTC saying we know how to stop this but we want to stop it with authorization and through a proper process in which we're not making the decision, because we're criticized—we don't want to be seen as censors, as some have painted the FairPlay application. Through proper authorization and an independent body, they would say the content owner has proven its case that this content is being pirated from Romania, for example, and that the ISP could go ahead and block it.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Would that shorten the time and the cost you were talking about? You were talking about $300,000 and about two years to be able to get.... How much of that would get shortened with the suggestions that you have?
Can anybody answer?
4:40 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
I'll give you an example from our perspective. In our FairPlay application, we took a look at the costs of blocking through domain name servers, which is a common method of blocking, and it's infrastructure that is installed on every ISP system today. The estimated cost to do a block of one site is something in the range of $18 to $36, whereas we spend two years—
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
We have a technology through which we can identify the content, and based on the existing technological infrastructure that's there, it's going to cost us a maximum of $20 to be able to block, if we have the jurisdictional authorization that you're talking about.
