Evidence of meeting #143 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 works.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
If it was not to be extended, would that change your position on other matters or is it isolated to basically the 50 and 70?
4:20 p.m.
Partner, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, As an Individual
I don't think, sitting here right now—maybe I'll come up with something more intelligent when I'm done—that anything particularly turns on 50 versus 70 in my view.
4:20 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I think there were three different types of rules within this agreement related to copyright. There are those provisions that, quite frankly, we already caved on under U.S. pressure back in 2012—
4:20 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
—so our anti-circumvention rules are consistent with the USMCA, but only because there was enormous U.S. pressure leading up to the 2012 reforms, and in fact, we are now more restrictive than the United States, which creates disadvantages for us.
Then there's the one area, the notice-and-notice rules, that the government clearly prioritized and took a stand on to ensure the Canadian rules could continue to exist.
The term extension has an enormous impact, and quite frankly, it's obvious that the government recognized that. It's no coincidence that when we moved from the TPP to the CPTPP, one of the key provisions that was suspended was the term extension. Economist after economist makes it very clear that it doesn't lead to any new creativity. Nobody woke up this morning thinking about writing the great Canadian novel and decided to instead sleep in, because their heirs get 50 years' worth of protection right now rather than 70 years.
For all of the other work that's already been created, that gift of an additional 20 years—quite literally locking down the public domain in Canada for an additional 20 years—comes at an enormous cost, particularly at a time when we move more and more to digital. The ability to use those works in digital ways for dissemination, for education, for new kinds of creativity will now quite literally be lost for a generation.
If there's a recommendation to come out of this committee, it would be, number one, recognize that this is a dramatic shift. When groups come in saying, “Here are all the things we want as rights holders”, they just won the lottery with the USMCA. It's a massive shift in terms of where the balance is at.
Second, the committee ought to recommend that we explore how we can best implement this to limit the damage. It isn't something we wanted. It's something we were forced into. Is there any flexibility in how we ultimately implement this that could lessen some of the harm?
4:20 p.m.
Full Professor, Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
I'm indifferent to whether it's 50 years or 70 years, for two reasons.
I just finished a book last month that was about literary social life in France in the 19th century. They had salons where people would go, and artists and politicians would mix. In that book there were lists of the artists and the writers who showed up there, and three-quarters of them were names we don't know.
In terms of copyright term protection, I think very few works manage to be relevant 50 years—or even less so—70 years after the death of the author. I don't know why we should be having so much difficulty over an issue that is important for only a minority of authors. That is one reason.
Second, if we are worried about the copyright term, then I think perhaps we should worry about that because of the fact that copyright covers computer programs. Do you realize that because of their nature, there is never a public domain for copyright programs, given the life of copyright programs? This is an industry that's getting absolutely no public domain.
Lastly, I would say it is possible to have a commercial life beyond term, and I think this is right. As to whether that term is 50 or 70 years, as I said, I'm indifferent. I would never walk outside or march for that one way or another, but 70 years is the term that we have for our major G7 partners; therefore, being a member of the G7 comes with a price, and the extra 20 years is a minority issue.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you.
That's interesting, though. That question gives the whole spectrum on it.
Thank you very much to the witnesses.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
That's why we left them to the end.
We're going to jump to Mr. Longfield.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to share a couple of minutes with Mr. Lametti.
I'd like to start with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. First of all, thank you for helping us through the study that we had on intellectual property. It was good to see the implementation of some of the ideas we discussed.
I'm thinking of the interaction between the Intellectual Property Institute and the Copyright Board or collectives. How much engagement do you have in terms of guiding artists towards protecting their works, finding the right path forward for them?
I know you do that in other ways with intellectual property, but what about...?
4:25 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
I'm not sure I'll be able to answer the question with respect to the institutional work that IPIC does, although it maintains relationships, obviously, with those bodies.
As individual advisers, that's a significant part of our day-to-day function, to counsel our clients in terms of how best they can realize the value of the works they've created and exploit those in the marketplace.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
One of the shortfalls that we found in our previous study was with regard to the transparency—not purposely being non-transparent, but just the fact that people didn't know where to go for solutions or to protect themselves.
4:25 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
Right. I think one thing that we have to contend with as advisers, and that you have to contend with as legislators, is the fact that the copyright system is incredibly complex. It's incredibly opaque for non-experts. I think a guiding principle that everybody would be on board with would be an effort to make the Copyright Act—and the copyright system, more generally—a little more user-friendly.
There are a number of items that we've canvassed in this discussion already, such as reversionary interest, that add additional complexity to the operation of the act and that, I think, should be assessed with an eye towards making it something that you don't need to engage a lawyer for and pay x number of hundreds of dollars an hour in order to navigate.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
In fact, one of the Google representatives said that it is a “complicated and opaque web of music licensing agreements” that people face.
Now we're just talking about guiding principles. We're very late in the study. When we were working on developing an economic development program for the city of Guelph, we looked at guiding principles. When we looked at our community energy initiative, we looked at guiding principles.
In terms of our act and our study, how can we get some of these guiding principles put up at the front of our study? Do you have other guiding principles that we should look towards?
4:25 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
I think, broadly speaking, you can identify a handful of guiding principles, drawn from various theoretical approaches, to justify why copyright exists. Among those are providing an incentive for the creation and dissemination of works by ensuring that authors get rewarded. However, I think it's absolutely critical to maintain or to keep in mind that this principle has to be balanced against a broader communal and cultural interest in ensuring the free flow of ideas and cultural expressive activity.
The challenge that you face, of course, is finding a way to calibrate all of the various interests and various mechanisms that you're putting at play here to achieve those quite disparate functions. There's a tension at play there. It's an ongoing tension.
4:25 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
I don't think that there is a resolution to it necessarily, but I think that it can be implemented and then assessed on an ongoing basis to identify where there have been shortfalls, overreaches and under-compensation.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you.
In the minute that I have left.... Ms. Gendreau, you mentioned the collectives. I am very interested in how collectives are managed or not managed, and the transparency of collectives. Were you leading towards discussing that? If so, maybe you can put that out here.
4:25 p.m.
Full Professor, Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Yes, I'd be happy to talk about that.
I understand that people may have concerns about the way that collectives are run. I think the fact that some collectives will no longer be obliged to go before the board will perhaps raise even further concerns.
However, I know that there are rules, for instance, in the European Union that look at the internal management of collective societies. I would think that such rules, even though they are probably perceived by collectives as annoying, should actually be embraced precisely because they would give greater legitimacy to their work. I would see such rules as legitimacy enhancers rather than as obstacles to working.
December 10th, 2018 / 4:30 p.m.
Liberal
David Lametti Liberal LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC
Thank you.
I think my challenge is more that of addressing people by their last names when I've known them for 20 years.
Mr. Tarantino, copying for the purposes of computational analysis is what you potentially suggested as an AI and data mining exception. Do you think that gets us there? Do we need to go with “such as”, or—as someone else suggested a couple of weeks ago—do we make an exception for making incidental copies apply to informational analysis? Give me your thoughts on that.
4:30 p.m.
Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
I'd have to defer to the views of our committee. It's not a point that we specifically canvass them on, beyond what you find in our submission, which is that the U.K. approach is something to consider. What I would suggest is taking it back to our framing device. Let's examine what the result has been in the United Kingdom of implementing their exception for computational analysis.