Thank you.
Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting us to be part of your review of the Copyright Act.
My name is Elisabeth Schlittler. I am the General Delegate for Canada with the Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques or SACD, and for the Civil Society of Multimedia Authors. You may howl with laughter at the acronym in French, which is SCAM. But since I have been saying and writing SCAM for 30 years, I am going to continue to do so. Joining me today is Patrick Lowe, a scriptwriter and a member of the authors' committee.
SACD and SCAM have had offices in Montreal for more than 30 years. The two associations manage the rights of their members, in Canada and abroad, over a vast repertoire of dramatic and documentary works, hence the two associations. The member authors have given them the mandate to negotiate, collect and distribute the royalties paid by the users of works from their audiovisual, radio and stage repertoires. They are both collective societies within the meaning of the Copyright Act.
SACD members create dramatic works; they are scriptwriters and directors. We also represent playwrights, choreographers, composers and stage directors.
SCAM represents the scriptwriters and directors of documentaries.
Together, SACD and SCAM represent more than 2,000 Canadian authors, both francophone and anglophone. They are the screenwriters and directors of television series, feature films, animations, shorts, online and radio series, together with playwrights and choreographers.
By becoming members of SACD or SCAM, these authors bring us their right to communicate their works to the public via telecommunications. For example, SACD's film repertoire includes features like Denys Arcand's The Fall of the American Empire and series like Luc Dionne's District 31. SCAM's repertoire is made of documentaries like Benoît Pilon's Roger Toupin, épicier variété and Pascal Gélinas' Un pont entre deux mondes.
In addition to the income it provides from royalties, SACD-SCAM negotiates on their behalf the conditions of the licences it will provide to television networks and digital platforms in order to use our repertoires.
In Canada, SACD-SCAM has negotiated licences for six traditional networks, 20 specialty channels, one pay-per-view channel, five digital platforms, one radio network, and an agreement for cable rights.
Because of the contracts that SACD-SCAM has negotiated with television networks in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Monaco, with digital platforms like YouTube and Netflix, and because of its agreements with authors' associations in countries like Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Poland, our members are assured of receiving the royalties they are due for the use of their works in those countries.
SACD-SCAM's principle governing remuneration, specifically in the French-speaking countries of Europe, and also in Quebec, is very simple: authors must be associated with the entire duration of their works' economic life and they must be compensated for all the ways in which the work is used.
As a result, collective rights management continues to be essential, particularly in the digital age. The current review of the Copyright Act should encourage both the creation of works and fair compensation for authors, by providing collective societies with more appropriate tools.
It is time to counteract the effect of the many exceptions adopted in 2012 and to recall that the act is supposed to protect authors.
The government must put a stop to the theft of the intellectual assets that stem from the authors' work. It must send a clear message that all work must be paid for and that not everything can be obtained for free.
You will find our recommendations in detail in the brief we submitted in May. Here is a brief overview.
First, we recommend that the legal uncertainties surrounding the issue of the ownership of rights for cinematic works—actually, audiovisual works in general—be clarified. In our view, we need a specific acknowledgement that this is a collaboration between a number of co-authors, and a presumption of ownership on the part of scriptwriters and directors. That clarification will allow us to negotiate with Canadian networks and platforms for compensation on behalf of our member directors, who have been deprived of it up to now.
Like the majority of countries with a private copying system, we recommend that the private copying system in Canada be extended to audiovisual works and that it apply to all media that consumers use to reproduce them. Extending the system to audiovisual work would correct a situation that is impossible to justify, both to the authors and to our sister societies with whom we have agreements based on reciprocity.
Like the European Parliament, we recommend that all digital intermediaries contribute to the funding of cultural content, since they profit by streaming it, or providing access to it, for their subscribers.
We applaud the initiative by the Minister of Finance to find tax solutions for e-commerce. But we are asking that all the taxes paid by national companies also be paid by foreign companies, and a part of the money raised be set aside to fund Canadian culture.
Finally, we are delighted that, in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Canada is at last committed to extending copyright in Canada to 70 years. This reflects the extended use of the works and it harmonizes Canadian legislation with modern legislation abroad.
On behalf of the members of SACD-SCAM, we thank you for your attention. We are ready to answer your questions.
Thank you.