Evidence of meeting #136 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 content.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
It's interesting you talked about vertical integration. A number of our ISP providers are vertically integrated, so are you suggesting, or am I reading, that because of their vertical integration they have a lot more flexibility to be able to charge extra?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Yes, I think that's fair.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Okay.
This is my last question. Back to you, Mr. Lawford, you suggested that the evidence suggests online piracy is very small and shrinking. Could you submit that evidence to the committee? I think Mr. Smith was saying it's a big issue and it's growing.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Absolutely, and it is probably easiest for me to submit to the committee afterwards.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Yes, I'd appreciate it if both Mr. Smith and Mr. Lawford could submit, if you want to make any further comments.
November 5th, 2018 / 4:40 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Sure. My information is coming from our submission in the FairPlay before CRTC. We went through the MUSO study and found certain assumptions in there. The MUSO study is based on site visits and that may not reflect actual downloading. There are many site visits, but you may not be spending enough time there to download something, so it's a proxy. That's a weakness.
The same thing with the Sandvine report. There are certain weaknesses in it, and also Sandvine stands to make money, of course. If you pass a similar law to what's being proposed, they are going to sell the blocking equipment.
I'd like to submit that to the committee. These arguments were fairly technical and they were in the CRTC—
Liberal
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Lawford, just to confirm, it does say on page 3 of the brief that you or your organization submitted to the committee that PIAC is “concerned about the affordability of Canadian content”. Specifically, PIAC believes that Canada should—and your first recommendation is—“Task the Canada Media Fund with acquiring 'second-window rights' to compelling Canadian content for free distribution, so that everyone who is interested in that content can access it on the platform of their choice.”
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Right.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
Maybe it wasn't top of mind before, so could you elaborate a little more on that concept, specifically to this recommendation?
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Sure. I recall it was in the written brief in either June or July.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
The idea is that you get, as a copyright owner, first chance to make money from your Canadian content, by running it on CTV or whatever, but because it's Canadian content and because it's funded by the Canada Media Fund, which is really a proxy for taxing Canadians to produce Canadian content, it would be fair for those Canadians who wanted to see the content because of the national cohesiveness value of it, to get a chance to see it even if they could not afford a BDU subscription, for example.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
Thank you very much. I just wanted to get that on the record.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Thank you for the question.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I'd like to go to the Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright.
Some members have come to this committee and there was a demonstration on the Hill a little while ago about how some of these infringing technologies work, the Kodi boxes. They showed us a box that had links to web servers' content for rights holders. Clearly it's organized theft and it's a problem we need to look at.
I'd like your thoughts on what constitutes a market failure or a legal or government failure, especially in terms of what Mr. Fewer said. The significant amount of content they showed us was in a huge number of languages from all over the world, and much of that content is legally unavailable in Canada. In their brief the Public Interest Advocacy Centre referred to expanding the definition of piracy so that it covers accessibility and foreign language content.
Should content that is not legally available be considered pirated content? Obviously, for many consumers who want to have access to those stations in the language of their choice, that's their only option. Could you give us your group's opinion on it?
Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
Sure, and I think the first response is that if there's no Canadian licensee for the content, then there's no Canadian plaintiff to bring an infringement action. If programming is produced in a third country, it's entitled to copyright protection in Canada and the copyright owner can always bring an action in Canadian courts for Canadian infringements, but if no one in Canada has licensed the rights to that programming, it's not going to result in any infringement proceedings, anyway.
What we're talking about is—
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
It's a bit of a grey area. Are you talking about a situation where someone is pirating content, such as the latest Game of Thrones, through a Kodi box and isn't actually paying to receive that service by legal means?
Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
That's correct.
The problem we have is that these boxes are very sophisticated, so many consumers will see an interface that looks very professional. It looks like the menu from a legitimate service and they enter their credit card information. They can be misled into thinking they're actually subscribing to a lawful service. These things are promoted as free programming, even though they're not free because you still have to pay for the box and the service.
It's just where Canadian rights are being infringed, and Canadian creators or licensees are being deprived of that economic activity, that a Canadian court action would result.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I'd like to go back to Mr. Fewer's earlier statement that the best defence against piracy is having a competitive environment where consumers can that with reasonable costs. I didn't paraphrase your statement very well, sir.
If you go to the United States, you can get HBO's streaming service for $20 U.S.—no, $15 U.S. Bell has just recently announced that you can get it through their CraveTV but you have to get the addition to it, so it's $20 Canadian. Even then, you can only use a low-definition format, unlike in the U.S.
How do Canadian consumers take that? My understanding is that Game of Thrones is one of the most pirated shows around. Do you feel that's more of a market failure? Are we not allowing a proper venue in Canada for consumers to pay for their content?
Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
I would be very cautious about defining a market that includes unauthorized and illegal sources as part of that market, because you're distorting—
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
No, what I'm saying, sir, is that if the only way that someone who's paid $3,000 for a high-definition television can get Game of Thrones in high-definition is by utilizing illegal content, or through a Kodi box or whatnot, can you see how some people are going to say, “Well, if they won't give me the option here in Canada legally, I'll continue to do this until they give me that option”?
Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright
I disagree with the premise, because Game of Thrones is available in Canada from a Canadian licensee.
The entire market of content, whether it's Canadian content or foreign content, is—
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
You can get it if you go through the full cable service, or whatnot, and Bell has recently just launched an offer where you can get it on their streaming service through CraveTV, but again, at an additional price, and again, at a lower definition than is available in most places.
Do you understand what I mean?
