Industry Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[Samuel Bischoff]

The other dimension that was raised was the dimension of public data and the fact that it can be widely shared or readily accessible, and detailed to the point that an author, a rights holder, would be able to access it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

I give the floor to—

[Patrick Rogers]

I'm really sorry. I know I'm on the corner here. May I?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Yes, Mr. Rogers.

[Patrick Rogers]

I believe the minister's amendments are a step in the right direction on those pieces. I think that, as we've discussed, they can go further.

I am desperate, though, to speak about the idea that because they're big numbers or complicated, they shouldn't be regulated, or there shouldn't be a need for this.

You have access to almost every song ever recorded on your phone right now in a licensed, legal way because there has been an arrangement between the rights holders and the platforms. That's awesome. That was, at one time, described as not doable. People sat here and told parliamentarians, “Do you really want me to go and track down the rights of every song rights holder? Don't you know there's a recording right and a written right? That will take forever.” Now we have a large, flourishing, legal, licensed music process across multiple platforms.

Therefore, this is doable. I beg parliamentarians not to be led down this path of “It's too complicated for you to understand.” You must reject that. We wouldn't accept that in nuclear regulation or bank regulation. We can't allow it in the stealing of arts and culture.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks for that point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Vis.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a point of clarification.

Some stakeholders, including many of you today, have raised concerns that the artificial intelligence and data act does not adequately protect the copyright of Canadian creators. That's been well established today.

However, Mark Schaan, senior assistant deputy minister of the department, explained to the committee during his appearance in October that the most effective aspects for addressing the copyright concerns are in the Copyright Act, and that the government has announced a consultation regarding the connection between artificial intelligence and copyright. Some of that has been covered.

Just so I get it on the record and the department hears it very clearly, why do you think matters related to copyright must be dealt with explicitly in AIDA rather than in the Copyright Act? Does anyone want to comment on that? Could amendments to the Copyright Act be made instead of, or in addition to, explicit copyright provisions in AIDA? If so, which ones?

If anyone wants to comment on that point of clarification, it would be very helpful.

Mr. Rogers.

[Patrick Rogers]

Can I just say, without casting aspersions on anyone, that this is an impossible game of three-card monte for stakeholders?

The bill before Parliament is Bill C-27. There is a copyright review going on. If we don't comment on AI and its interaction with copyright during Bill C-27, we will have missed the boat. If we miss the opportunity to talk about it during copyright consultations, there's a high chance of it being suggested that we talk about it in Bill C-27.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you. I agree.

This is in no way a reflection of my personal opinion of the assistant deputy minister, who I think is brilliant, but it's a little naive, in some respects, to differentiate it that way.

[Patrick Rogers]

Yes. I think what we're here for, all of us in different ways.... Again, I think that, on AI, the human element of this is very important. If you come to ground on the principles, you can go and change the laws however you want.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Ms. Noble, your testimony in the very beginning struck a chord with me.

I come from the Fraser Valley and I represent the Fraser Valley and the Fraser Canyon. Probably every Hallmark movie in North America has touched on my riding, the number one riding in Canada, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. Literally every week last year, I'd drive by downtown Abbotsford or Mission and see movies being made. Then the strike in the United States happened and the industry shut down. In fact, both neighbours on either side of my house work in the film industry and didn't get a paycheque for almost a year. Those families were very hurt. Those are good, high-paying jobs.

First off, what are actors and writers saying with respect to equivalent legislation or equivalent problems in the United States? Where do we need to find interoperability with American laws, specifically for English-language programming, to make sure our writers, entertainers and performers are not disadvantaged in any way?

[Eleanor Noble]

I'm going to let Marie Kelly answer this for you. However, a big issue in their strike was this exact issue. It affected us. Marie will be able to give you more detail.

[Marie Kelly]

This was the key issue in the SAG-AFTRA strike in the U.S. The members understand in the U.S., as we do in Canada, the precarious nature of how our product is held. They are lobbying in California and other places for deepfake laws. They know it has to be in the collective agreement, but it also has to be in the laws. They're also looking at consent, control and compensation. You'll hear about that in the U.S. as well. They'll talk about name, image and likeness. We also need those protections in legislation.

I have to make one point. We haven't talked about the fact that diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are remiss in our industry. It's getting better, but the reality is that your TV screens don't reflect all of our society. When we're talking about data that's going in to machine learning, that's a concern we have to have. The discriminatory data that's going in is going to produce—and there are many articles on this—the same kind of data coming out. That needs to be said here.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Hénault, I know you wanted to comment on the previous point. Do you want to quickly say something regarding copyright?

[Stéphanie Hénault]

Yes, I wanted to discuss the distinction between the Copyright Act and Bill C-27. The Copyright Act governs rights holders, whereas Bill C-27 concerns the construction and management of generative AI models.

It's important to regulate that industry by means of obligations of collective interest, including compliance with copyright. I imagine that other statutes, such as those on aircraft construction and transport, provide that one must comply with standards in the collective interest. We view Bill C-27 in the same way. It has to be said very clearly that developers must introduce policies to train their models fairly and respectfully and make them available. There must also be policies respecting users to ensure they clearly understand that this isn't a free pass to violate third-party copyright.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Vis. I'm sorry but that's all the time you had.

I now give the floor to Mr. Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I wish everyone a happy Monday, and welcome to this committee.

From the testimony of each of you, it was easily garnered that the impact of AI is nothing less than what happened when the printing press was introduced a few hundred years ago. I say that with much historical thought on that front. What happened in the Industrial Revolution was that we were able to put a train on train tracks across the world. There is much emphasis on the opportunities for artificial intelligence in your field and your sector; however, there is also some trepidation you folks have within the AI space or within that technology.

Eleanor and Marie, I'll start off with you. Is the impact of AI greater on the copyright side or the AI side, in terms of generative AI, where you may not need the individuals? I want to get that clarification, because we do have a copyright consultation going on right now, and part 3 of the bill, AIDA, does not pertain to copyright. I want to get your view on this. If you had to split up the two percentages, what would be the impact?

[Marie Kelly]

It's hard for us to divide the impact on individuals and their lives of having no work and having their image stolen and put in the worst kind of material. Both of those are horrendous, but we haven't talked a lot about the loss of work. The reality is that there is going to be a wholesale loss of work across all industries.

We have a concern about being a cultural industry. I don't believe you can take AI and create a culture. Individuals can use it as a tool. In the U.S., there is already case law that says that if there's no individual involved in creating a piece of art, and it's just created by a machine, that's not copyrightable.

The impact of this on jobs, individuals, and society is significant.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm still stewing on that reference to the U.S. case law that's in place now.

I'd like to move on to Music Canada. I'll try to get to everyone. If I don't, please don't take it personally.

With regard to high-impact systems, a lot of the testimony we've heard as a committee is dealing with the differentiation between high impact and low impact. With regard to the music and arts community, where would you fit yourselves in and why, in terms of high impact and low impact? We want to go after high impact, but we don't want to stifle innovation. We want to make sure the guardrails are in place for high impact, but we don't want to stifle innovation.

[Patrick Rogers]

I don't believe that currently the bill describes music as high-impact. I would find it hard to believe that anybody who's spent the last two hours listening to us, though, would think that there wasn't a high impact of AI on all cultural industries. If there is an attempt to allow for AI not to respect copyright laws, then it will have the highest impact on us. That's something you could fix today in Bill C-27 by just saying that AI has to pay for the use of copyright material.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I'll move to Marie-Julie Desrochers.

Welcome. My question concerns Bill C-27.

Is it not important that we finish off this bill and put it in place? Twenty years have passed. Wouldn't you agree that the reviews of this bill pertaining to AI—even the copyright side, which is ongoing—should happen at much shorter intervals?

[Marie-Julie Desrochers]

I'm sorry. I missed the end of the question.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

It's about the intervals. When we review these pieces of legislation, due to the technological innovation that is occurring, it should happen at much shorter intervals or time periods.