Industry Committee on March 8th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Erskine‑Smith.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Lovrics or Ms. Stanley, with respect to artificial intelligence, should the notion of a transparency requirement be included now to address concerns about it, including those raised by Professor Centivany?

The literature on artificial intelligence proposes that its productions should follow a path similar to that of photography and be seen as the product of a tool, not as works. Can you give us your views on this? Should there be an obligation of transparency?

[Colleen Stanley]

I'm not sure I understand your question. Is it an obligation for transparency in...?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In my understanding of artificial intelligence, it will sometimes be the source of reproductions of works, which will then be new works. Is there an obligation to trace and name the original work? Should there be some form of copyright compensation if artificial intelligence distorts the original work? Is that what we should do?

[Colleen Stanley]

This isn't related at all to this topic. I don't see the relation. AI creation of copyright-protected works and the extent that they draw on other works or whether they're transformative works is the topic of a lot of copyright conferences right now. I would say I don't really think there's any clear consensus in copyright law at all on that right now.

Ms. Lovrics, did you have anything further on that?

[Catherine Lovrics]

Yes, I agree. To the extent that the question really relates to either what exceptions are made for clearance for inputs, which is one of the points that Professor Centivany made, or protections for outputs, or what the infringement analysis should be with respect to outputs vis-à-vis the inputs, is a whole separate issue. In fact, when the government ran a consultation, we provided submissions related to many of those issues, but it seems to be outside the context here.

To the extent that interoperability and this enabling circumvention of TPMs to allow for two computer programs to speak to each other may result in access to code that otherwise is a trade secret or an algorithm that is inside the black box, arguably, given the scope of the current exception at least, and given the way infringement works and how everything is subject to infringement, there are protections from a copyright perspective, but there may be bigger issues to consider there from a trade secrets perspective, as well as a disincentivization with respect to investment in the AI industry, which is huge in Canada, obviously.

I'm not sure if that was what you were trying to get at, but in the context of this bill, that's to me the closest analogue in the AI industry.

If part of the question is just how robust our AI industry is in Canada and whether or not it may actually facilitate interoperability between two computer systems and develop code that allows for two computer systems to speak to each other, that's for a technologist to speak to, but I do think we're well positioned in Canada from an innovation perspective in that space.

That's me speaking personally, and not necessarily on behalf of IPIC.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you very much for your comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Centivany, you gave a good example about the computers. You have three different systems that aren't able to talk to each other. Do you have another example that might be helpful for the committee? I think that's a really good one in terms of what we see in our daily lives. Do you have another one you can provide?

[Dr. Alissa Centivany]

I have so many examples, unfortunately.

Another example that I think resonates with a lot of people is the example of consumables with, for example, HP inkjet cartridges. You buy an HP inkjet printer. It's a good deal. Then what ends up happening is TPMs are used to basically prevent third party inkjet cartridges from being used easily. In fact, I read a comment just yesterday that one litre of inkjet toner is more expensive than one litre of Chanel perfume, so we can see the ways in which companies are locking in consumers and then essentially making them pay to continue to be able to use their stuff.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's a really good one too. I think this also touches upon the environment. You literally have printers that are almost disposable in terms of economics, because for about the same price as cartridges, you could basically buy another printer and then have the cartridges included and so forth, so there's another level to this that I don't think we've gone into.

I know my time's up, but I think those practical examples are really good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Masse.

To conclude this discussion, Mr. Patzer, the floor is yours.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go back to the folks from Honey Bee. We heard comments earlier about an industry incentive for interoperability. In your view as innovators, is there an industry incentive for interoperability that currently exists?

[Scott Smith]

As I have been listening today, I have been trying to frame what I'm hearing within the context of our reality. A couple of things have stuck out.

One is that the void left by the lack of interoperability is filled with anti-competitive behaviour and planned obsolescence, because the people who live in that void have the ability to decide how everything goes after that. They hold a very strong position.

From a business perspective, for our industry and all industry in Canada, when we look at the copyright law and how it's impacting our ability to build farm equipment, it seems just weird at the outset. We're really concerned about this and we're not taking the legal and financial risk of making innovations commercially available, because we risk Nintendo versus King types of fines—$12-million fines. King was a little guy with a little thing. Relative to him, we're big guys with big things, so that's concerning.

With regard to the language that needs to be used and using plain language or legal language, industry is asking for clear language so that we have a clear understanding of where we stand with respect to these laws and so that we can also pursue provincial laws that are in support of our industries once we know where we stand federally. Today we don't know where we stand federally, given the lack of clarifying language. The bill presents this clarifying language to a point that we're very comfortable with, which would leave us to pursue our innovations and other opportunities. That would be the incentive.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

As far as some of the barriers go, the Copyright Act is premised on the whole point of ownership and/or licence. We don't own the software of any of the OEM machines. In fact, as a farmer, if I buy a combine right now, I don't own the software inside the machine I own. Is that not part of the issue for you guys as well?

[Scott Smith]

Software is only 30% of the issue we face with respect to interoperability, so it would solve only 30% of the issue. This law covers other forms of technical and digital locks that prevent interoperability —potentially unintentionally, I would say—that hurt us.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Maybe just keep elaborating on that, because I think we need to get a very clear and plain picture of what that is. You can use the rest of my time on that if you want.

[Scott Smith]

Interoperability is between two physical systems. There has to be a “cyber” for a physical-cyber system to exist. When there is no cyber, it's just physical-physical, physical-technical or physical-electrical. There are all kinds of circuits that exist, beyond ones that contain software.

When we looked at ones that contain software and at the Copyright Act, we were trying to imagine, through legal discussions with others, how this would work. Would we have to buy a million-dollar combine from a dealer, make our adaptation to that, then sell it as a package to the farmer, so we can have ownership of the software at the time we make the adaptation, or do we circumvent all the systems on the product and create our own parallel system? We've done that in the past, at great expense, but we're then spending all our innovation money on adaptations instead of innovation. That's not profitable for the company, nor is it interesting to the customer. Who wants to buy a product that's been hacked and chopped to get the resulting thing?

I think the better solution is this: Our long-term goal is to somehow have a mandate for interoperability. If we don't have that, the void will be filled by monopoly, planned obsolescence, and the death of the short-line industry and other industries that are add-ons to platform holders. If gatekeepers at the platform....

We're talking about walled gardens versus Sherwood Forest. We would prefer to operate in the competitive environment of Sherwood Forest and have access to those market opportunities, without even having to go into the garden. Let them have their garden, but let us also participate—those of us who want to live and work outside the garden—using those platform devices.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Patzer.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for attending this meeting and giving us their time.

That's all the time we have for today.

I also thank the interpreters, analysts, clerks and all the support staff.

The meeting is adjourned.