Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise yet again today on Bill C-11, an act to amend the copyright act.
As someone who has spent many years involved in the artistic and publishing business, I understand the vital importance of copyright for artists. There is an enormous amount of effort for an artist to create a work. As well, there is a great intellectual effort.
Copyright is a public construct. I love the way it comes down to us in French law, le droit d'auteur, the right of the author. This is a principle that has been fought over for hundreds of years.
As has been defined in parliamentary tradition, when an artist creates a work, it is not a piece of property. This is sometimes misunderstood by some creators. It is not a piece of property, something one can put a fence around, because we do not want to create fences around ideas; when we create a piece of artistic work, we want to open it up to the public. We want the public to be able to access that work. The problem occurs when artists are unable to receive rightful recompense for their work.
In 18th century England there were the so-called book wars. People would make copies of works, and then the book owners would keep out new competition.
We need to have a balance, and this has always been the issue with copyright. There is a need to ensure that a work can be put into the public realm and become part of our consciousness, our literature, our identity, so that new authors or new artists can build on that work and create more. We do not want to lock that content down so that it is inaccessible. However, in order for the creative process to continue, the artist must be paid.
Let us see how that relates to Bill C-11.
Unfortunately, in Bill C-11 we see a number of areas in which content is being locked down. It is being locked down as a so-called market solution. We hear the government say that we should let the market decide what copyright is or what rights the author and consumer have. That is not good enough. That is not forward-looking copyright. That is not copyright that would bring us into the 21st century.
We need to establish the principle that Parliament, not the marketplace, decides what the balance is. The marketplace has its role, but a corporate entity in the United States, such as Sony Music or another massive entertainment industry, does not have the right to trump the rights that have been established under Canadian parliamentary tradition.
Let us examine what those rights are.
Under the bill there would be the right to do parody and satire, which is a fundamental of art. All artists have done parody and satire of other artists. Today's great artist was yesterday's thief. Parody and satire are important. The documentary film community wants to be able to access work so that they can comment on it and create new works, but if a digital lock is put on it, those rights disappear.
With one hand we are offering rights to the Canadian public, meaning the right to make backup copies and the right to do parody and satire, but with the other hand we are taking those rights away if a digital lock is imposed, because a digital lock supersedes all other rights. That is not consistent with what many of our trading partners have decided.
There is a possibility to have a balance on digital locks, so let us examine their role.
A digital lock in a modern age is an electronic code to keep a product from being unfairly taken, and a corporate entity has a right to put a lock on their product. For example, in the gaming industry, codes were being broken on video games. People were taking the games without paying. The New Democratic Party has always supported the right of an entity that has invested in its creative work to put a digital lock on it.
However, in most of our WIPO-compliant countries, there is a right for exceptions. For example, someone may have to break a digital lock if that person is partially blind and needs to access a work to read it in larger print. That person is not the same as a criminal. In fact, it is a perfectly okay thing to do.
Another example is that because of digital locks, television networks will no longer be allowed to excerpt footage of films. They will only be able to show a screen. That does not do anyone any good.
There are legitimate reasons to be able to break a lock in order to access something someone has a right to. However, we do not support breaking digital locks just so product can be taken without paying.
On the issue of education, there are a number of areas where we have grave concerns. We support the idea of updating copyright into the 21st century, but we have concerns on the issue of fair dealing for education.
Fair dealing has been defined by right under the Supreme Court CCH decision, which established the six principles of what constitutes fair dealing. Fair dealing should not be seen as an open season to make it fair to take a textbook and just make endless copies to avoid buying more textbooks. That is not considered fair. The Supreme Court established the six principles of fair dealing so that we could have some clarity. We do not have that clarity in this bill, and it is important that we ensure clarity on education.
We also do not even define what education is. I can imagine many private businesses saying they are doing company training and saying it is education. That is not necessarily the same thing as education through an educational institution.
One of our great concerns in terms of education is the digital book-burning provision. If someone is learning through a distance education college, and many of my communities take education by long distance, students will be forced to destroy their class notes 30 days after the end of the semester, and teachers will be ordered to destroy their entire class notes. That would create a two-tier system of education, one in the classroom and one by distance. That makes no sense, and it would undermine the incredible ability of distance education.
To conclude, we are opposed to this bill because we do not see the government willing to work with us on the key amendments needed to make this bill into proper and positive copyright legislation for the 21st century.