Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for Scarborough West on his efforts in Bill C-205. I will deal with some of the problems I see in the bill. I agree with the comments made by previous speakers about individuals not profiting from their crimes, such as in the Bernardo and Mahaffy matter. However, we have to take a look at the bill to see what it does.
First, let me give a summary of how copyright works in Canada. Copyright is a legal system of rights developed to reward authors for their intellectual labour and thus encourage them to continue creating original works for the benefit of society.
Copyright is made up of statutory, economic and moral rights that allow authors to control the exploitation of their works, to profit from their works and to protect the integrity of their works. Copyright protects the expression of the work and not the idea
embodied in the work and comes into existence as soon as an original work has been fixed in a medium.
Categories of protected works as defined by the Copyright Act are literary works such as books, poems and stories, or artistic works which are paintings, sculptures, photographs, dramatic works such as plays, television programs, movies, scripts and musical works, for example, notes transcribed on paper or song lyrics.
The Copyright Act gives authors of works exclusive economic rights and these are the right to authorized reproduction, performance in public, publication, communication to the public by telecommunication, adaptation of certain works, commercial rental of computer programs and exhibitions of certain artistic works.
Moral rights protect the work's integrity and author's reputation. Moral rights can be waived but not transferred. They are the right to the integrity of the work, the right to be named as the work's author or the right to remain anonymous and the right to prevent the use of the work in association with a product, service, cause or institution.
The author is normally the first owner of copyright in a work, but employers normally own the copyright in works produced by employees in the course of employment and copyright ownership is alienable by assignment or succession.
Canadians recognize the importance of allowing authors to earn a livelihood from their works. They understand the benefits to society that derive from the creation of works such as cultural identity, private enjoyment of books, music, art and television and the wealth of information that is distributed through these works.
The issue becomes difficult when society, and this includes victims of criminal acts, believes that a work has been created by someone who does not deserve to make money from such works. More specifically, convicted criminals who write about their crimes and profit financially from their publication.
Bill C-205 offers one solution to the problem: to take away the copyright and proceeds of copyright from authorize who are convicted of indictable offences when they write about the offences they have committed. However, the proposed amendment to the Copyright Act runs the risk of contravening our international obligations under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The spirit of the Berne convention limits the state regulation of copyright in the criminal law.
In addition, Bill C-205 is too far reaching. It extends beyond the incarceration period throughout the lifetime of ex-offenders who have done their time and to their family members for 50 years following an ex-convict's death. For example, take someone convicted of drunk driving. This bill covers many offences, not just murder, manslaughter or sexual offences. It covers thefts, mischief, prostitution and drunk driving.
Should a person who has been convicted of drunk driving decide in his old age to write his memoirs, he could not write about the offence without losing copyright or proceeds from the work, even if the work decries drunk driving. His family would also be disinherited although they did not commit the crime. The same applies to individuals who may have been convicted of possessing marijuana and then at a later time writing about their experiences and the bad effects of drugs, could not benefit from such writings.
It is the same for individuals who have been involved in the prostitution trade. Neither the men or women who have been involved and who have been victimized in that trade could write about it years later, damning that type of trade because the copyright would be with the government. It is not a matter of them writing and not being able to profit. It is a matter of them not being able to publish it because the copyright is in the name of the state and the state must consent to publication.
Canada is not a country that is in the habit of taking away rights. It is a country with a strong charter of rights and freedoms that is respected worldwide. There are other solutions to this problem that do not involve the expropriation of rights or discrimination against ex-offenders and their families. Rather they involve choices made by the Canadian public and the respect of the rights of all Canadians.
Books written by criminals about their crimes often appeal to the curiosity of the population. Canadians can choose to buy them or not to buy them. Those who choose to buy them do so knowing that copyright proceeds may go to the author. Those who choose not to buy or read the works of the offenders who write about their crimes are making a statement. If enough Canadians boycott a particular account of a criminal then that person will not benefit financially from copyright.
Let us put our trust in Canadian consumers that they will make the decision for themselves.