Debates of Nov. 2nd, 2010

Copyright Modernization Act

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the constituents of Mississauga—Streetsville, I am happy to join the debate on Bill C-32, the copyright modernization act.

The last time we significantly amended the Copyright Act was in 1997. Like other countries, Canada continues to transition to a digital economy. This transition has had a profound effect on our artists, writers, musicians, software developers, filmmakers, photographers and other creators of copyright material.

For years, file sharing of music and video and large media storage in general has been possible, yet still a difficult task for most Canadians to accomplish. Today, transferring gigabytes is as easy as opening up the Internet browser. The world has changed and it is obvious Canada needs to keep pace to modernize its copyright legislation.

What has changed? Not long ago we were listening to eight-track tapes, cassettes and Sony Walkmans. We communicated through voice mail, not email, and fax, not instant messaging.

Today it is difficult to find children or adults alike who do not own an iPod or portable musical device. BlackBerrys, iPhones, laptops, iPads are seen everywhere and society has become dependent on them. Checking email and Facebook, sharing pictures and video, listening to music through one means or another have become integral parts of everyday life. Digital media is pervasive and omnipresent.

At one time Canada was a leader in the digital economy. In recent years though, our laws have fallen behind and we lag in global best practices. Our copyright laws are dated and we have received international criticism because of it. On this side of the House, we welcome modernization, but we want to do it right. We will agree to send the bill to committee at second reading. However, let me be clear. The bill needs work. It has numerous flaws and requires revisions and amendments at committee stage. The Liberal Party wants to make sure this work gets done.

Record labels, libraries, students, artists, authors, publishers, photographers, collective societies, video game creators, professors, consumers, film producers, educational resource centres to name a few have all come forward to show their discontent with the current status and structure of the bill. I have met with numerous stakeholders on this matter, and as my colleague from Westmount—Ville-Marie mentioned earlier, I have never had more requests for meetings and discussions than for Bill C-32.

In summarizing the complaints, I heard the following: “The bill tries to deal with piracy, but instead, it strips the industries of millions”. Also, “Intellectual property is not only a legal right, it is a human right”.

According to Jim Fleck, chairman of Business for the Arts:

Hill Strategies reports that Canadian consumers spent $25.1 billion on culture goods and services in 2005, more than consumer spending on household furniture, appliances and tools ($24 billion)....The output by the culture sector totalled: $46 billion in 2007, which was 3.8% of Canada's real GDP. If we were to include the induced and indirect impact, the value-added climbs to $84.6 billion.... The Conference Board estimates that 1,000,000 jobs are created by the cultural sector, representing 7.1 per cent of Canada's total employment in 2007.

Liberals understand that the rights of creators need to be protected and maintained, yet the fundamental rights of Canadians to access digital media must also be respected. Our goal is to find that middle ground.

Today I will be addressing some key flaws of the bill, primarily: one, a ratified collective licensing regime; two, technological protection measures, TPMs; three, file sharing; and four, statutory damages.

First is collective licensing and fair dealing. In 2004 a Liberal government legislated to allow for institutions such as libraries, museums, schools, their teachers and students to have access to materials under a collective licensing regime for fair dealing. These institutions have rights to materials for studying purposes. Unfortunately, these rights can be taken for granted and misused.

While students are expected to use materials for a finite period of time, sometimes the temptation to keep music or video is too great and many times simply overlooked.

The bill as it stands lacks a clear definition of “fair dealing”. This is a key component for our party and we will seek that definition in committee. Our goals are to offer materials for educational purposes, eliminate abuse and allow authors, artists and creators of the materials fair compensation, but at the same time give our students fair and affordable ways to obtain that information.

Two is technological protection measures, or TPMs. The exact amount of losses due to piracy is anyone's guess. Some report it is a $5 billion loss to the music and video industries. For years, the solution was thought to be digital rights management, DRM. Billions of dollars have been spent on the creation of software embedded into digital files which monitor the purchase method, the date and the amount of times a file has been used and/or transferred. Although this practice appears foolproof for combatting piracy, arguments can easily be made about the anti-constitutional measures.

Bill C-32 does not address the fact that when consumers purchase digital files for personal use, consumers assume, and expect to have, complete usage of those files without limitations and without restrictions.

Digital locking, or TPM, in Bill C-32 seeks to go even further than DRM by using file lock mechanisms. The circumvention of TPM in this bill requires extensive review.

We believe the Copyright Act must allow Canadians who have legitimately purchased media files the ability to transfer their purchase onto personal devices for their own personal use or to format or time shift or to make personal backup copies on their computer as long as they are not doing so for the purposes of sale or transfer to others.

There has been a common ground between balancing the rights of the creator and satisfying the consumer. We do not believe that Bill C-32 does either one. We look forward to examining these options further and finding that common ground.

Three is file sharing. A fundamental right in the digital age is the ability to share files. The whole concept of the Internet at its inception was to do just that. Peer-to-peer, or P2P, connection is a standard business practice. It allows for large file sharing among co-workers, clients, developers and anyone with an Internet connection. P2P has become the single most effective way of sharing large digital media. Unfortunately, it has also become a means for piracy. When two computers can communicate with each other and allow for file sharing, there are no restrictions on what can be shared.

Do members remember Napster? The case was supposed to set the precedent in the world to combat abusive and illegal digital file sharing. Napster was forced to pay $100 million for its P2P methods and infringing practices. What followed was the birth of penalties for those who share copyrighted files over the Internet without paying for them, but as we know, the piracy continued.

As a way to disguise P2P connections, Bit torrents have become a common piracy technique. Torrents were designed to track multiple share points of files and help for fast and steady download. Torrents are easily found through any Google search.

How do we stop P2P? How do we stop bit torrents? Quite frankly, we cannot, but appropriate penalties are a start. Copyright laws are only as good as the enforcement that accompanies them. Certainly in the age of the Internet, until some of this is sorted out, it remains, as we say, the wild west.

Four is statutory damages. Bill C-32 defines new statutory damages for infringement of copyright, but once again it is regressive.

We have many concerns with this section. How effective can it be to decrease the statutory damages? The government is proposing to reduce infringement damages from $500 up to a maximum of $20,000, to as low as $100 up to a maximum of $5,000. A main focus of the damage is to target individuals who download music from a peer-to-peer file sharing service.

I have already made the argument that P2P cannot be stopped. If peer-to-peer cannot be stopped and it is being used for piracy, then damages must be commensurate with the severity of the infringement.

In conclusion, there is no easy solution for modernizing Canada's copyright laws. I will not pretend to have all the answers. However, I can commit to working with all stakeholders on one hand and looking after the fundamental rights of Canadians on the other.

Listening to music while on the bus, walking or jogging, or watching videos on a two-inch screen or hearing last night's news from a podcast have become a way of life.

At the end of the day, my colleagues and I on this side of the House understand that the rights of the creators need to be maintained and protected, yet the fundamental rights of Canadians must also be respected. Our goal is to find that happy middle ground.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Trinity--Spadina.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member who just spoke is about the artists in Canada. If we look at the average earnings per year, a large number of them live--

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Just to clarify, we are on debate.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I thought we were still on questions and comments, Mr. Speaker.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I called for questions and comments.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I tried to rise. I am sorry. I was not fast enough on my feet. Another member wanted to ask questions too.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

No one got up when I called for questions and comments. The member for Mississauga—Streetsville not getting any questions is no longer here for questions and comments, so we will move on and resume debate. Would the member for Trinity--Spadina commence her speech?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

No. I was trying to ask a question of the member from the Liberal Party.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

We are resuming debate, the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to the bill before the House today. According to the government and as we can read for ourselves, this bill amends the Copyright Act in order to update people's ability and capacity to access great works.

Over the next 15 minutes, I will try to make the government understand that the real way to update the current legislation involves first acknowledging that certain rights exist for the creators, authors, writers and artists who agree to share their gifts with the rest of society for education and research purposes. However, the government needs to acknowledge that royalties must be associated with this and that it is not true that institutions, individuals and corporations can use these works—whether books, movies or plays—without recognizing that royalties must be associated with that use.

I listened to the government members who spoke earlier and who would have us believe that these royalties are essentially a consumption tax. Nothing could be further from the truth. Basically, there are two important things to understand and which, we believe, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One possibility is recognizing rights while ensuring that new players in new technology can have access to the works available. A compromise can be reached as long as the government agrees not to play into the hands of the major players. For example, Internet service providers come to mind. These providers offer public access through an open market using new technology.

What the government is trying to achieve and the consequences Bill C-32 will have are two different things. First, with regard to permission fees and licence fees, the bill does not ensure that the author is necessarily consulted, and thus, Bill C-32 puts an end to the right to decide whether or not to authorize use of a work. It puts and end to remuneration for use. That is what is of concern in terms of the principle and the concept behind fairness, because clause 29 of the bill talks about a concept of use related to a notion of fairness and fair dealing. This was defined back in 2004 by the Supreme Court. What have the consequences of that Supreme Court ruling been? It has given a great advantage to the users at the expense of our creators, our authors, our writers and our artists.

We must not forget this 2004 ruling because it laid the groundwork for unfair dealing, in our opinion, when it comes to our artists and creators. What does clause 29 of the bill say? It says that a work used for the purpose of private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright. Accordingly, a work may be used as long as it is for private educational purposes, education or parody.

This notion of fairness is not defined in the bill. The first step was taken in 2004 by a Supreme Court ruling that gave a great advantage to the users at the expense of the creators and our artists.

My colleague the Canadian heritage critic pinpointed the problem with the bill and that is that it contains exceptions, which she calls the deadly sins. There are 17 exceptions in total. We on this side of the House are not saying there should be no exceptions. International conventions state that there may be exceptions, but they apply in certain special cases. It is important to remember that. This bill has 17 exceptions that flout Canada's international obligations, specifically the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. This convention stipulates in article 9 that exceptions made for users must be reserved for certain special cases where reproduction does not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.

With these 17 exceptions, the government is flouting its international obligations. This bill ignores Canada's commitments and is unfair to authors and creators.

There are a lot of exceptions in this bill. One particularly problematic exception stands in opposition to what should, in theory, be a positive principle. It concerns educational institutions. Teachers will be able to use protected materials in their courses without obtaining permission to reproduce them. This applies to movies and plays, among other things. The problem is not that people will be disseminating these cultural and artistic works, but that schools, for example, will not be required to pay royalties if they reproduce works. That is the problem.

We have to ensure that everyone in our society has access to culture. Our young people need rapid access to our literary works and their authors, but we must not forget that these are artists whose livelihoods depend on this.

I was reading the latest statistics. In the education sector alone, there are 175 million copies of parts of copyrighted works in schools, CEGEPs and universities. The education sector alone provides $9 million per year to 23 Quebec authors and 1,000 Quebec publishers. People's economic livelihood depends on publishing and culture. Of course we want our young people to have access to culture, but we must also recognize that our creators have the right to fair compensation.

This exception, therefore, is pernicious, the more so because the term “education” is not defined in this bill. It could therefore be defined quite broadly and have a broad scope. Given that the term “education” is not defined in this bill, this exception for the education sector, which allows teachers to use literary works, reproduce them and distribute them to their students, will leave it up to the courts to determine whether this use complies with the law.

Of course, this will force artists and creators, many of whom already have relatively low incomes, to take their cases to court.

We will further impoverish our artists, who are only asking for recognition of their work. Royalties are a measure of fairness. Unfortunately, the Canadian government, with this exemption for education, is not doing any favours for Quebec's artists and publishers that provide works, books and educational materials to our schools.

There is another exemption, the one I call the YouTube exemption. It refers to the creation of a new work by using, free of charge, part or all of a work on condition that it is to be used for non-commercial purposes. In addition, there is no requirement to name the source unless it is reasonable in the circumstances to do so. Thus, another exception is created, and one that is unique in the world, found only in Canadian legislation.

It means that someone could very well use a work, song or music—for which the rights are protected in principle—without asking the author's permission and without paying the associated royalties. This could be the end of private rights for these authors. I will say it again. We must provide greater access to Quebec and Canadian culture, but we must recognize the work of our artists. Even though new gateways and platforms make the use of their work possible, this broader distribution must not exempt us from honouring our commitments and ensuring fairness for our artists.

There is also an exemption for private purposes. An individual may reproduce a legally obtained work on a medium he or she owns and provide access for private purposes.

Once again, there is a refusal to create a new category, and that affects the levies. The government thinks that this levy is a tax on consumers, but on this side of the House, we see it more as fair recognition for our artists' work—nothing more, nothing less. For the Conservative government, “levy for artists” equals “consumer tax”. That is not how we read it.

Other exceptions are created, such as communicating a work by telecommunication. The bill introduces a vague, flexible and inadequate notion. It says that the institution must take measures that can be reasonably expected to limit dissemination of the work. What are these measures? Again “that can reasonably be expected” is not defined, just like those fairness principles, even though the Supreme Court provided some direction on this in 2004. It is up to the courts to later determine the scope of the concepts presented in the bill, and therefore the artists will have to appear in court. With this bill, the government is deliberately impoverishing our artists.

The concept of “that can reasonably be expected” is also used in the exceptions covering visual presentations, examinations and inter-library loans.

The other exceptions cover works on the Internet, extending photocopy licence and backup copies.

This is no longer in line with the Berne convention, which authorized states to create exceptions in special cases. The government is creating systematic exceptions, at the expense of our authors and artists.

It would have been better to stop creating exceptions and to recognize that artists are entitled to a fair shake and to fair royalties. The government should have recognized that the author's permission is required before his works can be reproduced and distributed on new platforms.

What is wrong here is that with the locking approach, artists and artisans are responsible for controlling access to their products on the Internet, while the major Internet service providers are responsible for ensuring that these artists and artisans are appropriately acknowledged. Permission must be given for works to be issued on new digital platforms. We must ensure that our artists, who spend their time creating and making us dream, do not end up caught up in expensive legal battles. The federal government must take responsibility and amend the bill to better protect our creators and our artists.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in Trinity—Spadina and all across this country, many of the most creative artists, be they actors, actresses, singers, songwriters and writers of amazing literature, award winners, and I have a large number of artists living in my riding, tell me that they have to work second or third jobs in the service sectors because they just cannot make ends meet.

If we look at the average annual income of artists, we see that many of them live below the poverty line, even though they collect a lot of awards on behalf of Canada. They make Canada proud on the international stage and we often see them acting on television and hear their songs, yet they are paid so poorly, which is why this bill is very flawed.

My question for the member is whether there are amendments that he would support that will come from the New Democrats to make sure artists, writers, singers, songwriters and actors would be able to make better livings, because after all, they help create the Canadian identity. They help define who we are. They are really the soul of our country.

Are there some amendments that we could put in so that artists would get some of the income they help generate through their creative work?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, of course. My colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert could even support these amendments. This recognition is important because we must protect our culture, and this culture must allow us to dream. That is why we must ensure that our artists receive fair compensation for the works they produce. That goes without saying.

The problem is that this bill would cost our artists money, since it allows users to look for works on illegal markets and it allows those who purchased them legally to reproduce them. That goes against the principle of protecting our artists' works. That is how things have always worked, and it is too bad that the government is opening a door today. It is sending the message that the government does not protect artists' rights, and it could end up making them poorer.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague for his presentation and his detailed analysis of the situation, which he expressed very clearly. The member talked about a number of obligations that would apply should Bill C-32 be passed as it is currently written.

We know that this bill takes a lot of rights away from artists, particularly with respect to compensation. This bill fails to modernize legislation on royalties and creates exemptions that make it impossible for artists to get the same or, in some cases, better compensation.

This bill also places responsibility for proving copyright violation squarely on the shoulders of copyright owners and artists.

Can my colleague comment further on the fact that, if this bill were passed, artists would have to follow in Claude Robinson's footsteps? Perhaps members of the House do not know him, so maybe the member can explain the situation. Claude Robinson was a prolific and truly creative artist who spent 14 years of his life fighting for his copyright instead of creating and developing his ideas.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly it. What my colleague is saying is that our artists are being asked to be technical experts, which means that they will be spending more time ensuring that their works are protected than they will spend producing and creating them. That is the problem.

Internet service providers should be responsible for ensuring that artists benefit when works are transferred. For example, if someone decides to use an artist's work and put it on YouTube, then YouTube sells advertisements, it makes money off our artists' works, not directly, but indirectly. This is not happening directly, but it happens when people disseminate works on different platforms.

So we are turning our artists into technical experts. They will spend more time ensuring that their works are protected than they will spend creating them. Our artists are not robots. Above all, they are creators, and this bill essentially makes our artists poorer and diminishes their rights.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make two points. One is that YouTube actually does monetize traffic that is on there, which I think is a very positive element. That is why I do not mind any of my works being on YouTube, as long as there is a monetizing stream. It is important.

In terms of a monetizing stream, we see how the government attacked the levy, called it a tax, misrepresented the numbers and used it in its political mail-outs. Yet the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages went one step further.

In Europe there is the Pirate Party. Even the Pirate Party has never said anything as audacious as the Conservative Party that said, “We do not need to compensate artists through a levy because we have the Canada Council for the Arts”. Because there is a support program for the creation of arts in place in Canada, as exists in many countries, somehow the obligation to respect copyright is made null and void and we do not need to maintain a revenue stream for artists because they can apply for a grant to the Canada Council.

I know many, many artists personally who make their living by playing, by royalties and by copyright. Very few of them ever apply to the Canada Council.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks it is that the Conservative government would believe that just because there are certain programs in existence to support artists that the larger obligation to respect copyright and to respect the right of artists to be remunerated is somehow made null and void in this digital age?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, culture is always compromised with this government. During the last federal election campaign, Quebec's artists and artisans took action to make the government understand that they would not accept cuts to existing culture programs that allow our creators to function.

After using federal funds and budgets and threatening artists with cuts, now the government is using legislation to make them understand that we are living in a completely open market, in the wild west, and that the big players—the broadcasters and Internet service providers—will get benefits. Those who form the very foundation of the services provided will be dropped. Big Internet service providers are nothing without these artists.

We need to ensure that cultural content, which is produced on platforms and sometimes used for other purposes, is first authorized and then receives fair royalties. This Conservative government always compromises culture. We saw it during the last election campaign, and we are now seeing it with Bill C-32.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here as I have been delving into this issue since 2004 when I was first elected and became a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Back then, we had to deal with what was from 1997 the major last reforms to copyright and then we went into a new bill in 2005, which was Bill C-60. In 2008, we received Bill C-61 from the government but that was put aside because the Conservatives wanted to change the bill to become more technologically neutral. Those were the words by the industry minister earlier today.

This signifies the first time that we have had a fulsome debate in the House for quite some time because those prior bills never had a fair hearing within the House. We had a few debates here and there but not a fulsome debate like we are having today. I congratulate my colleagues, the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the critic from the Bloc Québécois and the critic from the NDP, for their speeches. They all, in their own way, put out well researched speeches with some incredibly valid points.

Once again I will reiterate that our party will vote at second reading to put this to a committee so we can give it a fair hearing. When I first looked at this bill, and despite the problems that I personally have with it, I wondered if it needed to be fundamentally changed before we reached second reading. I knew that if we voted yes at second reading, we would be accepting, by and large, the principles in the bill and, therefore, major amendments to change the direction of the bill in certain ways could not be done as they would be overruled by the Speaker.

At that point during the discussion, we decided to go ahead because we needed balanced copyright legislation. It is long overdue, no doubt about it, and everyone should perhaps grab just a little bit of blame in all of that as this discussion has gone on. We signed WIPO treaties in 1996, one dealing with the Internet and the other one dealing with phonograms. Since then, however, we have yet to ratify, pending, of course, the right amount of legislation or balanced copyright legislation. In this instance, Bill C-32, which is in front of us now, was really borne out of the ashes of other bills that have died on the order paper.

Going back to copyright and the issue therein, how do artists receive the right amount of remuneration for the work they have done? I will go back to the origins of copyright. The first time Canada had copyright legislation was in 1868. We felt the need, even back then, for artists to protect what they create but that it would be balanced with the right of users to have access to this material which was very important going back to the beginning and the genesis of the printing presses.

In 1868 and years thereafter, it started in Great Britain, moved its way to Canada and through the United States where it felt the same urge, need and desire to protect artists' rights and, at the same time, mass distribution for this material so it could be accessed by the public. However, by protecting some of this material we did not want to protect it to the point where we kept it under wraps from the general public and people could not get access to it.

The year 1875 was another time when Canada went full ahead and made changes to copyright legislation so that it would be more in line with other countries. Even at the very beginning of copyright legislation there was always the compulsion to bring it in line with what is international standards as artists' work really knows no boundaries. That was at a time when we were printing books for mass distribution. We did not have anything like the radio or record players but now, in the digital age with the Internet, the global village has become that much smaller.

In the very beginning, if memory serves me correctly, I believe the origins of copyright internationally was that British books were being distributed throughout the British Empire and there needed to be certain protections for that as it was distributed to countries like Australia, India or Canada, throughout the British Commonwealth.

The first time Canada saw a glimpse of modern copyright legislation, or at least something that was considered for quite some time to be the cornerstone of copyright legislation, came in 1924. Around that time it was comprehensive enough that it covered many aspects of what was out there in the public realm. Again I go back to books, certain recordings, photographs and that sort of thing, obviously at the very early stages.

As my colleague from the NDP pointed out earlier, the arguments that we are putting forth here today started in the latter part of the 19th century. He used the example of the rolling piano where music was played on an automatic piano, which we have seen in the movies, and whether that would destroy a piano player's career. Obviously, it did not. After that, would recorded music destroy the concert or would people stop going to concerts because they now had an album that featured the artist's recordings? That was not the case as, of course, concerts have increased dramatically from the time of their inception.

From 1924, we went on to make some substantial amendments to the legislation, obviously with the changing times, in 1985 as well as in 1997. Both governments, Progressive Conservative and Liberal, have made substantial changes throughout the years. There seems to be a camaraderie or general understanding to reach out to other parties within this House to ensure we have the right legislation.

However, so many stakeholders are involved in this that there needs to be a comprehensive look at how we deal with copyright and, in order to do that, it needs to receive a mature debate. Today we are debating the bill at second reading and it seems that we are now laying the building blocks for what is about to be a fulsome debate on where copyright is going in this digital age.

I also want to talk briefly about the other bills.

Bill C-60, which was introduced in 2005, received quite a bit of stakeholder response and a lot of it dealing with the fact that we are getting into the digital age. A lot of this was spurred on by the fact that all of a sudden we were sitting in front of a wide array of music selection that we did not need to pay for. It was free. This was the origin of Nabster and LimeWire. With those devices, all of a sudden the consumer had the ultimate choice. Not only was it available in many arrays and all types of genres, it was actually free. That was a fundamental misstep, a fundamental breaking of the contract that we as government have with artists, which is to say that we will help them protect their work.

Nabster has gone by the wayside, or at least the free version has, and other equivalent facsimiles of how that type of music is distributed, meaning peer-to-peer sharing. They have disappeared but there are business models out there. I personally purchase music at 99¢ a song, and I am fine with that. I do not have a very large collection but I do have a collection that is big enough that I gleefully pay for it.

One of the issues that came from peer-to-peer sharing and one of the issues that has not been discussed yet is the information out there about what is illegal. This is something that has been dear to my heart as an issue. As my colleague pointed out earlier, in the United States right now this is incredibly litigious. The lawyers are running overtime when it comes to areas of copyright. A lot of the rules that are put down in America right now are really laid down by court judgments throughout the court system. To a certain degree that has happened here as well, but not to that extent.

In America there were several illustrations where children downloading music in their basements were being sued by major companies in multi-million dollar lawsuits. Obviously they cannot be involved in multi-million dollar lawsuits because there is no way they can get the money. Instead, the companies felt compelled to make a statement and made their statement by taking the most vulnerable in society to court. I will not come down too hard on companies for doing that as they had a legitimate concern about people stealing their product. However, at the same time, they did it with a great deal of haste and aggression that I would not agree with. I think that we, as government, should address that issue.

However, the result of that was the introduction of Bill C-60 in 2005, which, as I stated previously, created a lot of input and for all good reasons. The government changed in 2006 and we found ourselves going back in 2008 with Bill C-61. Bill C-61 went off in different directions from Bill C-60 in many cases but some of the fundamental aspects remained intact.

However, the problem was that in many cases people felt that it had been rushed through too quickly or that it had never received the right debate within the House. Many of the stakeholders thought Bill C-61, because it was illustrative, was maybe too illustrative because it set out certain examples and put people in corners. Basically it was too smothering, as someone told me. Bill C-61 found itself it to be too much for everybody to handle. At this point it went back to the drawing board. As we have heard this morning, I think “technologically neutral” was the response that came back.

Bill C-32 is the latest version of this and hopefully with the agreement of members of this House it will actually make a fulsome attempt to put this into law, and that way the next time we deal with this will be as something that comes way down the pipeline.

One of the issues that keeps being raised is peer-to-peer sharing. I have always made the comment that the problem with having legislation that is too stringent and too detailed in nature is that it becomes oppressive to the point where it just does not adapt. I have said it before and I will say it again. It seems that whenever there is a technical measure by which people are not allowed to get to a certain piece of art, roadblocks are put up around it. Governments do it through regulation to keep people out for access reasons.

However, once that it is put in, I have a 16-year-old son who could get around it within 48 hours. I am not exaggerating because I have seen it happen. I would not want to say that it was my son because I would get him in trouble since this is a public forum, but I have seen it happen. Teenagers do not like to be told that they cannot access certain material for whatever reason.

In the old days, when we were told that we could not access certain material for whatever reason, we would get upset if we could not access certain art or music because it broke Canadian laws or regulations on content. Nowadays, when roadblocks are put up to deny teenagers access, they laugh. It is a big joke. In essence, they find that it is not a big deal because they will find it and get to it in 48 hours. They have done it before and they will do it again.

The concept is that they are breaking the law. Artists have protection around their material that they need to make a living. If a particular parent is sitting at home and is not familiar with the new ways for children to attain music, movies or any type of entertainment nowadays, a parent would be horrified. Parents would be horrified if someone were to call them at home and say that he or she had just caught their child shoplifting at HMV and that the child had tried to walk out of the building with a CD in his or her pocket.

Some kids can download about 20 to 25 CDs from their computer in the run of five minutes. That is okay. Some kids tell their dads that they just downloaded the new movie that is out in the theatres onto CD. A lot of parents just do not pay any attention and just say “Okay, that is great. Let us go watch it.” It is illegal.

I hope part of the debate elevates copyright infringement and how the protections in place for artists are there for a reason, which is to protect the artists' work. It is stealing. We can call it that. In the end, artists are unable to make a living if their material is not protected.

On the other hand, one of the provisions in the bill talks about digital locks. We have all talked about this. We have all heard about this. Is it too stringent in this particular bill? It needs to be discussed. Is it a situation where digital locks cannot be touched? I am not so sure.

I said earlier that I have a concern about the fact that one particular company may have a digital lock in place over certain material. If someone downloads a piece of music or a movie, that piece of music or that movie can only be listened to or viewed by that company's equipment. I have concerns about that because the individual probably purchased the movie legally but is locked in a corner as to how he or she can use it. That deserves to be revisited.

I refuse to believe that the digital lock issue is cut and dried. Educators have said that the digital lock provisions would be too harsh on them now that they have an educational exemption. We have one group weighed off against the other. That involves a full debate. That has to be talked about because many people have a point. I met yesterday with the Canadian Federation of Students who brought that issue up.

On the other hand, some artists are happily ensconced and making a good living by the fact that digital locks allow their material to be protected. Software companies are a case in point.

Canada has a fantastic software industry for games, the intellectual property of video games, Xbox, PlayStation. We have a great industry here and it certainly deserves protection. We need to look at this material with open minds and consider debating it.

Unfortunately the debate earlier was going in different directions regarding the levy that was imposed upon CDs, DVDs or DVDRs and the way artists are able to achieve money to protect their livelihoods. They came up with a solution in the late nineties but it is not within this bill. The government does not agree with it but it deserves to be discussed. I hope the government will be open to revisiting that issue once again when we get this legislation in committee.

There are other issues as well in these changing times. I mentioned the downloading, or making a copy, of music or movies. This is copyright.

This debate started back in 2005. It is not that long ago, if we think about it. We started out with P2P, or peer-to-peer sharing. Nowadays we have live streaming, where no copy is involved. An individual just logs on and live streams what he or she wants. YouTube is a classic example. This technology is going at a blistering speed in the digital age and now we have to keep up.

I was happy to hear the minister talk about a five-year review, and I congratulate him on that. That goes a long way toward looking at legislation once again. Personally, I feel that is the way we should be going.

Bill C-32 contains a number of other measures such as those regarding mashups and the creation of a new exemption for user-generated content, which broadly written, could create an opening for abuse. That is true. We have to consider that.

Statutory damage is another issue we have to look at.

Fair dealing in general has to be looked at, fair dealing for access for consumers, fair dealing for parody, satire, but fair dealing for education. We have had a lot of input on that. Some people are very concerned about it, artists in particular.

Some artistry groups have said that an open-minded, fair dealing provision puts in the hands of the courts what should be determined by Parliament. That is something we have to consider. Again, it becomes incredibly litigious. Fair dealing has that possibility so we have to consider that. We have to draft legislation to make sure that does not happen, in my humble opinion. Artist groups are saying that the full impact of an open-ended fair dealing provision may be difficult to predict but the fact that there will be unintended consequences is wholly predictable.

The intent of the education provisions put forward by people from the University of Ottawa and by the Canadian Federation of Students is not to destroy the livelihoods of people who write textbooks. So again we have the interests of one weighed off against the interests of the other. We have to come down the middle in what I consider to be fair copyright legislation.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, at a recent United States conference that some of us in the House attended, we were approached by a United States congressperson about this whole area. What I would like to ask the member is whether he is aware of any lobbying that has been done by American interests, perhaps in the recording or movie industries, to try to influence the development of this bill.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point. I will read a quote from a book titled From “Radical Extremism” to “Balanced Copyright”, which is a collection of articles on copyright. I will get to the quote in a moment, but it is a salient point and certainly is germane to this conversation because, when the member talks about the American interests, a lot of it has to do with digital locks because the major corporations headquartered in the United States have a vested interest in digital locks for that reason.

Again I push back to them just a little by saying that if I take an artist's material, and that artist could be Canadian, I can only play it on certain platforms that are deemed fit for that particular artist's work. I am not sure if I totally agree with that and I push back somewhat for the sake of public interest and for that particular artist. It is the song that I purchased; the method of distribution I care little for. It is just that I want that song or movie.

Sara Bannerman wrote an article in this book, one of the first articles in it. She brings up the international context of this debate, which I spoke about earlier in my speech, going way back to the late 1800s. She says:

Bill C-32 responds to the same pressures, domestic and international, that have historically characterized Canadian copyright reform. ... Bill C-32, to a greater extent than its predecessor in Bill C-60, bows to international demands and goes beyond the minimum requirements of the WIPO Internet treaties.

She has particular concerns about this bill and the international scope of it. That leads to the fact that, yes, there are a lot of international pressures, especially from the United States.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member about one of the key issues in all of this, which is ensuring that creators are properly remunerated for their work and how we monetize the changes in technology. We have struggled with this throughout the last century and into this one with each change in technology, and we have struggled with how to make sure artists and creators are properly paid for their work.

A couple of decades ago there was the whole issue of blank cassettes, disks, people making mixed tapes and, in that situation, creators not being properly paid, so we went to a system of putting a levy on blank CDs and disks. It went to a copyright collective to ensure that the artists were paid. It was a made in Canada solution that worked well and served our artists well.

This bill abandons that approach. We could do it now with music-playing devices. We could ensure that levies on each of the devices go directly to artists and creators for their work. I am wondering what the member thinks of that issue and if it is a direction we should be moving in.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the question of the hon. member is germane to the debate in a big way. The business model that exists for artists right now is changing to the point where it is so incredibly fast that it is hard for the smaller artist to get involved in the business, or we create a barrier of entry for many young artists, because they do not know the processes well enough to adapt, because it is all about adaptation.

The hon. member brought up the levy situation. It is too bad that the levy got into the wrong type of debate. My colleague from the NDP who sits on the heritage committee brought forward a bill that basically extended the levy on blank CDs. There is a levy of so many cents on a blank CD, which is available for artists in general. The reason is that we were making so many mixed tapes or recording from different sources that the artists were not getting remuneration. So whenever we buy a blank cassette on which we put the songs, we have to pay a certain amount of money, a very small percentage of it, to go to an artist.

My colleague talks in his question about extending that into the next generation of recorded material, and that would be obviously things like iPods or MP3s. However, the Conservatives brought up a valid point in that it will push this toward all platforms, everything that is carrying music: cars, cellphones and the BlackBerry, which now has a way of playing music. Therein lies the nub of the issue. We have to get into the debate. I do believe that there is remuneration for artists through a levy type of compensation, but unfortunately the government turned around and called this a tax, by just saying that it is simply money out of pocket and therefore it is a tax, and it does not want to put a tax on iPods.

I say that it is money that goes directly to the artists, not to general revenues. If the Conservatives were so concerned about it, why did they put a fee on transportation at an airport? That is not a tax, though. That is what they say. They up the fees when we walk into an airport, but that is not a tax. That is a security fee.

It is disingenuous really to have an honest debate about what it is we are doing, which is to say that we need artists to be compensated for what they do, because if they are not, the next generation of artists will not be either. Yes, dare I say it, the next Justin Bieber is just around the corner. So many people flinch when I say that, but he is a good artist. The thing is that the next Justin Bieber, or the next struggling artist, will not get the compensation. I come from an area where there are a lot of artists, a lot of small independent artists who want to make a living. They are not asking for or commanding a major audience. They just want their own little audience. That way, when they distribute their material, they are compensated so that they can continue to do it in the beautiful province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on this cold day in the House I just wanted to come back to the hon. member and follow up on some of his comments.

The most particularly egregious aspect of this legislation is the 30-day retroactive book burn, where students and teachers have to basically destroy content that they have received as part of their educational material. This is incredibly irresponsible, for anyone who understands the education sector, whether we are talking about high school, college or university. What it means is that students have to try to retain in their minds material that they have accessed as part of their educational requirement.

I want to get a comment from the member on how he feels about this particular measure that forces teachers and students to destroy their educational material, in other words, part of their education.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about this, as is the member. These issues are most important to me as a member because I represent a rural riding. I think this could have an adverse effect on rural ridings, in general, especially for those people who rely on long-distance education as the means by which they obtain their high school diploma or, even more prevalent, their post-secondary diploma.

I represent 191 towns in my riding. It is quite astounding how many students, and I mean secondary students, from grade 9, or junior high or high school, who rely on long-distance education to receive their high school diploma. Of those 191 towns, over 50 do not have access to broadband Internet, which is incomprehensible nowadays. When I tell people in Ottawa that somewhere in the vicinity of 20% to 30% of my riding has no access to broadband Internet, that they have only dial-up Internet, they do not know what I am talking about.

This gives us the idea that it is a right as a Canadian to receive access to broadband Internet. As politicians, we trip over ourselves trying to put asphalt in every town in the country, but yet when it comes to broadband Internet, we almost treat it like a luxury.

In any event, back to the issue. I am deeply concerned about the fact that a 30-day period is in place where the material has to be destroy and—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. Unfortunately, I will have to stop the hon. member there and move on.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas.