Industry Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2018

[Dan Albas]

An eagerly awaited new game called Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming out this week. It is over 100 gigabytes. In what you're proposing here with starting any new tax at 15 gigabytes, that one game that somebody is going to buy and pay for—and we've heard from those who work in that industry that everyone gets paid, including the people who make the music for it, through their purchases—is six times higher. How is that fair to someone who has lawfully bought and paid for something, that one download of one game would hit that threshold right over the top?

[Paul Novotny]

That's a very good question. You're talking to somebody who has actually worked on one of the most successful video games in the world that has come out of Canada. The bottom line is that our brethren, the screen composers who work in video, don't receive a public performance royalty or a reproduction royalty as we do. The idea here would be to include them in that type of copyright remuneration stream.

We all get paid fees up front to do our work, but oftentimes what we have to do is spend most of those fees to make the work for our clients. Copyright remuneration from public performance and reproduction is essential to our livelihood.

[Dan Albas]

I totally understand what you're saying, sir, and the business model and the way people are behaving has changed. However, to be fair to someone, again, they may not access your content. They may be just looking to pay lawfully. We're not talking about pirates here who are taking away from that ability, we're talking about people who purchase something with their good money and may be not interested in your content. Why should they have to pay that 15-gigabyte tax for simply utilizing a service that they've paid the ISP supporter on, that they've bought the console or the TV with and they're enjoying for entertainment?

Again, I would go back to it. Why should someone who has not expressed interest in your content be paying for this new tax that you're proposing?

[Paul Novotny]

Are you familiar with the economic mechanism called the “private copying levy”?

[Dan Albas]

Yes, but again, when I talk to millennials, they will say, “I've bought this song off iTunes” or “I've paid to stream this service, and I'm utilizing my own TV, my own console or computer, or router, my own ISP, the Internet usage plan”, and so on. They are paying for those services, and if they want to consume your content, they will pay you for it.

Again, this is a very specific question. Why should people who are paying for those things, in addition, have to pay this tax for your members, recognizing that there are real families who need to put food on the table such as yourselves?

[Paul Novotny]

I have to be really clear that it's an idea we're exploring. The whole stimulus for this idea is that we have made it very clear how we are being compromised by the shift from the advertising model to the subscription model. We are searching hard for economic mechanisms that relate from the 20th century of copyright to the 21st century. The truth of the matter is that there is a levy in place already with private copying that “taxes”, if you will—and many people are using that term—zeroes and ones, which have been on digital media such as CDs, all sorts of data.

We're not saying this is going to 100% solve the problem, but what we think we should look at is somehow trying to extend an economic mechanism that was and is in place already in the 20th century, into the 21st century.

[Dan Albas]

I met with Unifor today. Obviously they were here on the Hill speaking about the need to support journalism, and one of their suggestions was almost identical to what you're calling for.

If we start creating rent-seeking on ISP, eventually everyone will want that, and then you'll be having consumers who are not consuming but are paying. Do you think that's fair? Who do you think we should limit it to?

[Ari Posner]

It's a very complicated issue and your question's a good one.

[Dan Albas]

This is your proposal. And, again, when you come here, I'd like to know—and I think people at home would like to know. Why do you believe, versus Unifor, versus some of these other groups that are as challenged as you with the new models of Netflix and Google and Facebook, that we as parliamentarians should be looking to give you that capacity and say no to all the rest?

[Ari Posner]

Well, let me be clear and reiterate what Paul just said. This is just one of many ideas that the Screen Composers Guild and creators in our world are looking at. Again, we are not economists. The 15 gigabytes, it's not like it's the magic number, or this is what it should be. We obviously agree with you that you don't want to have people who aren't using the content to be paying a tax for it, if you want to call it that. We agree with that. But in an ideal world, what would be great is what we talked about earlier, which is transparency and to be able to have access to the knowledge to have our performance rights organizations get in there and do the work that they need to do in order to help remunerate the artists and the creators.

The levy that was talked about is just a very simple idea, something that has been in existence in the past. It would be very simple—

[Dan Albas]

I would just say it's quite different from blank tapes, where I would make a mix tape for someone and utilize content from my own private collection to give to someone else. We're past blank CDs. Again, simply adding more cost to consumers—you're a consumer, I'm a consumer—I don't think that's right. But as parliamentarians, what is fundamental to us is government cannot tax without the consent of the people. And that's where any of these changes have to come from this committee.

When you bring forward a proposal from here, we do expect there to be good answers for this. It can't just be “we're hurting”, because everyone out there is challenged by this new technology. I would say that if you're going to come to a committee and ask for us to ask Canadians to pay more for something that they may not use, we should have good reasons as to why it's a special case.

We've heard at this committee that some of the publishers have suffered greatly. That might compromise the ecosystem for producing new materials. I'm concerned about that. We have to have those kinds of things fleshed out.

I appreciate that you don't have all the answers. I certainly don't myself. But when you come to a committee and you're asking us to use that ancient power to tax the people, we need to have good reasons.

[Paul Novotny]

Could I add something?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Yes, quickly.

[Paul Novotny]

Well, I just wanted to say that we completely respect everything that was just said. We just want to have a discussion about this. There actually is a precedent with existing legislation that is still in force right now with the Copyright Act. That's what we want: a discussion about updating that specific policy. That's where we're at with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Sheehan. You have five minutes.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all of our presenters for their testimonies.

My first question is going to be for a panel that is present here with us. My wife works for an ophthalmologist. She is an opthalmic medical technician. I certainly understand a lot of what you're suggesting and stating, particularly with the fastest-growing segment of people with visual impairment being those 75 years and older. It's growing significantly as well.

Mr. Thomas Simpson, you had a book. Can you hold it up, please?

[Thomas Simpson]

I have this one and I have this one.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Okay. You have Harry Potter, for instance.

What would it cost a publisher to put a book into Braille? I'm not talking about the distribution and the total amount.

[Thomas Simpson]

Increasingly it's much cheaper than what it has been. I don't have that number offhand, but there's new technology coming out that would enable the production of Braille quicker, in large quantities and cheaper.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

So production is not cost-prohibitive to the publishers, you're suggesting.

[Thomas Simpson]

Correct. You can also have electronic Braille as well. If you have a refreshable Braille display—that's about this big—it will refresh the Braille for you so you're not then wasting paper. It's cheaper to produce as well.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

One of the reasons I ask that is that during your testimony, Lui, John and Thomas, you talked about a number of suggestions, and one of the things that this committee did as part of this study was travel from coast to coast. We started in Halifax and then went to Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and British Columbia.

We heard a lot from the creators. I'm not talking about the Harry Potter-type creators; I'm talking about the up-and-coming new creators, the people who do it part-time or casually and support their middle-class lifestyle by having another job. What are the chances that those same authors are going to be published in Braille or that there's going to be an interest in publishing their works?

Do you have any stats on smaller, less-known Canadian creators getting their opportunities to be published and distributed in Braille?

[Lui Greco]

That's a really good question. I think the short answer is no. No one tracks it. Someone brings a book to market, and their job is to convince as many people as possible to buy it. Some of those people may or may not have a print disability.

I think to keep it in context, if you look at self-publishing today, Apple, Adobe and a multitude of other platforms provide the ability to self-publish. Provided that those platforms are accessible and that they design the platform to generate alternate format materials, the format that the consumer or I buy it in.... I either hook up my Braille printer to my computer and print it or listen to it on my Victor Reader or what have you. Then I bear the cost of making the content consumable in a format that I choose to digest, but the building has to be built to be usable and accessible, i.e., the building is the book.

Is that cost onerous? No. There's free software now. You can go to daisy.org, and you can download for free software that will take a Word document or an ASCII text file, or probably an XML or HTML file— XML is a protocol that publishers would be familiar with—and literally, at the click of a button, you can create a well-structured accessible book at no cost. Whether one person who's blind chooses to consume that or a thousand people choose to consume it, it doesn't matter. It's available in an accessible format.

We don't ask questions around how many people are going to be watching television with closed captioning. We don't ask that question anymore; we just make it available. One hundred percent of Canadian television has to include closed captioning.

Why would we ask the question that you just posed, sir? It's unfair and unnecessary. The fact is that all content should be made accessible, end of story.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I agree with that. One of the things that struck me is that there's a disconnect between what's been happening in the publishing industry and the accessibility that is necessary. It struck me that the larger, more popular books probably get into Braille, but sometimes the new people who are writing are perhaps not getting their stuff into Braille. Any suggestions that we can make—and your testimony will help us—will help us to make sure that all books, whatever interests that person, are available for them, whether it's quality of life, study or business. I think those are important questions for us to continue.

What if we reversed it? For visually impaired creators, what tools are available for somebody who wishes to take an idea, get it published, and get it out to market? Would you have any suggestions or answers on that?

[Lui Greco]

I would suggest self-publishing. There's a gentleman in my office in Calgary who lost his sight as a result of having water on the brain. I think it's hydrocephaly. He went from having normal vision to being legally blind literally overnight. He self-published a book that you can buy on iTunes for $10. He went through the same channels as you folks would go through when you decide to publish your memoirs.

Those platforms are available. Some are better than others. That's the same as anything else. There are good cars out there and there are bad cars. There are good self-publishing platforms that are usable by someone relying on assistive technologies and there are those that aren't. The natural market progression would be that when and if folks with disabilities choose to publish, they will find by trial and error those tools and those systems that work well for them. Those will be the ones they patronize, and hopefully, those will be the ones that last.