Industry Committee on Oct. 1st, 2018

[Marie-Josée Dupré]

I don't know if they will be able to get that. YouTube and all the digital services like Spotify or Google have networks around the world. For each and every country, they need to get their licences according to what's played in their countries, although at some point in time they may think of getting multi-territory licensing. I think it has been discussed in the past, but right now that's why each and every country has to jump in and make sure they protect their own interests in terms of what's going on with the consumers from their country.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Madam Messier, there are a number of competing interests or potential interests in terms of production, and Mr. Pelletier, I'd be interested in your thoughts as well.

With regard the new NAFTA agreement to extend copyright to 70 years after death, I've talked to filmmakers who are very concerned. They don't know sometimes who controls the film they want to use historically. Sometimes they're held under large corporate licences and they become very expensive, and it's very difficult to be sure you're going to be able to say, “I have the copyright to a film” if you're using historic film when you don't know. Are you concerned that this will affect the ability of the Canadian creative community to produce new works based on historic film and images?

[Hélène Messier]

Given the current Canadian system, I think the lack of a definition of what constitutes a film or audiovisual work is the source of the problem. It's not easy at this time to determine the owner of the copyright. It's therefore difficult to calculate the term of the copyright, whether the length is 50 years or 70 years. This situation is causing issues.

[Gabriel Pelletier]

I think that the ability to identify creators will help define the duration of their rights. It must be understood that, in Canada, copyright is associated with an individual and not a company. This is contrary to the United States, where the rights for commissioned works belong to companies. In Canada, the term of the copyright starts when the work is created by one or more individuals, and it continues until 50 years after their death.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madame Mainville-Neeson, in terms of these notice and notice warnings that you're forced to send out all the time, I'm interested, because I got three of them this summer, three days in a row, for my apartment in Ottawa, where I hadn't been in a month. I didn't know if it was real. I don't know if somebody was trying to shake me down.

How are you able to ascertain accuracy when you're sending these out? I wasn't in my apartment for a month and nobody else was there, but I got three notices that I was apparently downloading films at my apartment. How do you separate consumers so that we can identify where serious piracy is taking place and where just maybe random algorithmic errors are taking place in terms of what they're tracking?

[Ann Mainville-Neeson]

All we can do is verify the information that's provided to us by the rights holder. That includes the time, date and IP address of the downloads. When all that information is accurate, we forward the notice, and we're obligated to do so.

I can understand it's a concern for users, and that's why we want to ensure there are new provisions that ensure that we can at least weed out some of the more nefarious ones, but there will always be notices that are provided that.... It's supposed to serve an educational purpose, and sometimes it just doesn't hit that mark.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We're going to move to Ms. Caesar-Chavannes.

You have seven minutes.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Whitby, Lib.]

Thank you.

Ms. Mainville-Neeson, you said during your testimony that innovation is essential to keeping the industry healthy. While I appreciate that, I just wanted you to describe how this innovation disruption has affected the interests of copyright holders in the last 10 years.

[Ann Mainville-Neeson]

Innovation and disruption do go hand in hand. We certainly believe in balance. The idea is not to balance only in favour of network operators, for example, but rather to ensure that we have the right legislative framework in place to promote innovation to the benefit of rights holders. Good innovation should benefit all the users, including both the rights holders and the intermediaries, such as ISPs or TV service providers.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Has the Copyright Act restricted your ability at all to develop and continue to use current and emerging technology?

[Ann Mainville-Neeson]

Yes, it has. The examples we've provided were, for example, the NPVR, and other areas where we've been looking at different means of providing notices in order to attempt to address some of the concerns raised by Mr. Albas and Mr. Angus.

These are the types of things we're constantly looking at. The disproportionate and unbalanced sharing of risk between network operators and rights holders is working against innovation. We just don't bring things to market.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Last week we had some other ISPs here with us. I understand that you're not vertically integrated like some of your counterparts, such as Rogers and Bell. One main argument made by the opponents of the safe harbours provision in the act is to challenge the dumb pipe theory.

Can you describe the extent to which the ISPs can identify content in the data they transmit?

[Ann Mainville-Neeson]

I think every ISP will have different means and different degrees of what's commonly called a deep packet inspection. Not all ISPs do that kind of work. To the extent that those vary in degrees, I would say that Telus is very much at the low end of that. There's very little ability to discover exactly what's being downloaded: a bit is a bit is a bit.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Is there no capacity for Telus to do that?

[Ann Mainville-Neeson]

I wouldn't say no capacity, but it's not an area that we've generally gone to at this point.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass to Mr. Lametti.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

My question is for the four of you.

Ms. Cyr and Mr. Pelletier, you're asking us to change the initial balance between the writers and the directors, and we have an ecosystem for films—

[Gabriel Pelletier]

No.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

With your permission, I'll simply ask my question, and then you can answer.

There is an initial balance in that the author assigns his or her rights by contract when his film is being produced. Ms. Messier and Ms. Beaudry described that ecosystem well, where certain risks are taken, but not by the authors.

In your opinion, all four of you, is there an injustice there, and if so, where is it?

[Gabriel Pelletier]

If I may—

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Just a moment, please.

Why change that ecosystem? Is it not in keeping with the risks that are taken? Is anyone underpaid? To us, from the outside, that ecosystem seems to function well enough. I'm thinking of Xavier Dolan or Atom Egoyan, and things seem to be going rather well for them in Canada.

[Gabriel Pelletier]

I think your question is mainly for me, and I'd like to correct something: we don't want to change that ecosystem. Quite the opposite; we want to preserve it. At this time, authors give producers licences so that they may use their works. We don't want to change that.

We simply want to clarify the act to include a presumption of ownership. That means that absent contrary evidence like a contract with a producer or a claim to copyright by another creator, it is presumed that the scriptwriter and the director are at least authors of the work. That ambiguity needs to be cleared up in the act with regard to the presumption of ownership.

Under the act, the producer is presumed to be such if his name is mentioned in the credits. This wording, under the subtitle “Presumptions respecting copyright and ownership”, could lead people to believe that the producers are the authors. However, that is not the case, and nothing in Canadian jurisprudence states that producers are authors.

The authors are people who use their talents and their judgment to create dramatic works. I respect the work of producers, who take financial risks, but I don't think that creating a budget is equivalent to creating a work of art.

The current system works and we do not want to change it.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Let us also hear from Ms. Messier or Ms. Beaudry.

[Marie-Christine Beaudry]

First, I want to specify that when we talk about cinematographic works, we are talking about audiovisual works.