Industry Committee on Oct. 29th, 2018

[Lorne Lipkus]

I don't know if it's a regulatory change or not, but in the existing legislation, there's a 10-day period of notice given to both the importer and to the rights owner. It says, “These goods are on their way into the country. You, Mr. Rights Holder, have 10 days to bring an action or else we're going to be releasing the goods in some way.” The importer is given 10 days' notice to say that these goods are suspected of being counterfeit.

In the cases that we're finding right now, the importer either doesn't respond, or says, “I didn't order those goods.”

If part of the process were an abandonment situation, which is done with other goods in Canada in similar situations—after 10 days the importer does not respond, or responds and says they didn't order these goods—then why can't we destroy them right away?

Why is the government paying to continue to store these goods? They could be destroyed immediately.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's why I want the legal advice.

I think what you're asking for is a far more complicated process for something on which we could have a simpler solution in the medium and short terms.

I'm not disagreeing in terms of responsibility of it. However, in my opinion, there's low-hanging fruit in your situation that you're advocating, and public health benefits as well, especially with more drugs and so forth now getting into counterfeiting.

At any rate, I'm going to quickly go to OpenMedia.

With regard to your statement about undermining the consultations with the extension of the trade agreement, perhaps you could enlighten us a little more on that. One of the things that has dramatically shifted during these hearings is a trade agreement in principle. We can debate whether it's going to get passed or not, but at the same time, we have agreed that that contains the context, and....

[Laura Tribe]

I think that this committee has been tasked with undertaking a review of the Copyright Act. What we've seen is an international trade agreement that is largely focused on physical goods and how they pass across borders, and provides some of the answers to the questions that this committee is asking.

If that trade agreement is passed and does become ratified, one of the concerns we have is that this committee has asked for what people think and how people feel about these issues and, at the end of the day, some of those answers have been deemed irrelevant by this trade agreement.

That's a concern we have about the democratic process, how these trade agreements are being negotiated. As for the NAFTA consultations and negotiations, the results of those consultations were never released to the public. Again, within that, we're having this consultation here, and we still don't know what the NAFTA consultations said. That deal was then moved forward.

Ultimately, all of these deals, all of these negotiations, all these consultations, are supposed to be in the best interests of people in Canada, and we're not certain where their voices are going or how they're being heard.

That's our concern with that being run in tandem to this consultation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I have less than 10 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You had less than 10 seconds probably two minutes ago.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It probably wouldn't have been a good 10 seconds anyway.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You are two minutes over, but that's okay; we like to give you your time.

Mr. Graham, you have five minutes.

[David de Burgh Graham, Laurentides—Labelle, Lib.]

I was going to go to you, Mr. Lipkus, on the question of why you'd want your toy labels protected for 70 years

However, before I get to that, I'm going to let Mr. Lametti ask a quick question.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Lipkus, one of the fundamental principles of copyright law is that copyright on the book doesn't mean ownership of the book. It's a physical object versus copyright.

Most of the examples you gave were a patent or a trademark—I think you would definitely agree with that—with copyright coming in at the end. Now, if there's a copyright violation on the label, why should it give you the right to seize or even destroy the physical object?

[Lorne Lipkus]

That's an excellent question.

In fact, what happens in practice right now is that they seize the package, because it is illegal to be using the packaging to advertise that. If the product is authentic, for example, it doesn't show—

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

But then you're back to trademark and a patent again for authenticity.

[Lorne Lipkus]

No, no. If that package—

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

The copyright only applies to the design on the label.

[Lorne Lipkus]

Exactly.

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

It doesn't apply to the authenticity of what's inside.

[Lorne Lipkus]

Exactly. You're 100% right, and so the product itself can flow through. No one is taking a position on the product.

Unfortunately, when the packaging is an infringement, very often the product is counterfeit as well, but—

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

You seem to be pushing for ability to seize or destroy the product based on copyright. If that's the case, you're misleading us.

[Lorne Lipkus]

No. If I said that, that's only predicated on the product being counterfeit. We've seen toys, for example—

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

We've seen toys under patent or trademark.

[Lorne Lipkus]

Correct.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[David de Burgh Graham]

Thank you.

I have questions for everybody, but I'll go to the more interesting ones right now.

You both talked about replacing Crown copyright, or getting rid of it altogether, which is, I think, a very poorly known subject for most people.

Can you briefly explain how you understand Crown copyright? Should it go to public domain, or should there be, for example, a Creative Commons licence for Crown material?

Who wants to go?

[Laura Tribe]

I think it's probably across the board. I'll let Kelsey look at my notes.

Exactly what that looks like in implementation, I'm not the expert to tell you what that solution looks like. I think that what we are advocating for is more content in the public domain. If these are publicly funded materials created by the public service and the Canadian government, then those are things we would expect to be put into the public domain in one form or another.

I'll let Kelsey speak to the Creative Commons aspect of that.

[Kelsey Merkley]

Thanks, Laura. I echo those comments.

Works that are paid for by the public are already the public's and should be easily accessible to use and be able to build, innovate and create on top of. We know that governments such as Australia's retain the copyright but publish works openly under a Creative Commons CC By licence, which means the government would continue to get attribution for the work being done, and allows for a broad reuse with minimum restriction.

We know that the European Commission has recommended open licences, the CC By and the CC0. CC0 is a licence that will apply public domain immediately to the licence. That's for publishing open data collected by public sectors and bodies within Europe.