Mr. Speaker, clearly the laws governing intellectual property and copyright in Canada need to be modernized. Technology has changed over the past 50 years. Change is necessary, but the question is what kind of change. Change is all the more important in a world where trade is becoming increasingly globalized. Change is also important if Canada wants to protect itself and its creators from unfair competition with countries that have already modernized their laws. The reason why the government is so motivated and eager to pass this bill is that it is currently in negotiations with Europe for a free trade agreement, and Europe has tougher laws that better protect its creators.
The principle of having a bill on intellectual property and copyright is, therefore, good. The NDP believes it is high time that copyright rules were modernized. The way this government is going about it, however, causes too many major problems. In some cases, the government is even creating problems where none existed before. We are attempting to amend the bill so that it is more in line with the best interests of Canadians, however the government does not even wish to consider any amendments.
What is important is protecting the creators and not the distributors of the works. That is what counts.
Let us spend a little time considering the principle of copyright. Copyright is a set of exclusive prerogatives that an author has over his or her original works. It is a legal, historical and social construct that has greatly changed since the invention of the printing press, and it is periodically called into question. It can basically be divided into two branches: moral rights, which recognize the author's authorship of the work and which also aim to ensure that the integrity of the work is respected, and proprietary rights, which confer a monopoly on economic use of the work for a specified period after which the work enters the public domain. As a branch of the law, copyright is one of the key elements of intellectual property and literary and artistic property.
Coming back to my point: the purpose of this right is to protect the creators and not the distributors of works. That is the mistake this government is making, and that is the problem with this bill.
Who is the creator of the work of art? Whether we are talking about a new computer game or a new novel, that is the question we need to be asking when we draft a bill like this one. We have to protect the production and the creation of the creators, the artists, the musicians and others. If we take the time to ask an artist—I wonder if the government did that—what one of their greatest challenges is, it is often having to deal with the major corporations to which they are obliged to sell their creations.
I oppose this bill because it protects the large corporations and does not set out to protect the authors or creators themselves. The vast majority of artists are local. They are poor and need help getting better compensation. The reality is that, once a work is created, sometimes the contract that is signed with the distributors does not allow the artists to earn a living.
A good example of this is the music of Bob Marley. Bob Marley had a terrible struggle with music companies, even to get enough food to feed his family. He had to invent writers for his songs to avoid his songs being published by companies which exploited his name and reputation for their own gain. Even today these companies continue to publish his catalogue without any recognition or compensation to the rightful owners of the corpus of his work, his very own family.
We also need time to consider all the amendments that might be made to the bill in order to create a system of fair royalties for artists. As it stands at present, the bill eliminates several million dollars worth of income for artists. What is more, this bill grants a number of new privileges in terms of access to content, but does not provide any alternative method of remuneration for the artists. That will have a significant impact on our artists' ability to survive.
However, the government pretends that it is protecting creators, but it has yet to show how artists and other workers in creative industries would have a better living because of this bill. Bragging about the strong measures, including digital locks, does not miraculously make this a good piece of legislation.
Artists know that this is a bad bill. That is why over 80 arts and culture organizations across Quebec and nationwide argue that the bill would be toxic to Canada's digital economy. They warn that failure to amend the copyright modernization act to ensure fair compensation for Canadian content owners, not distributors, could only lead to a decline in the production of Canadian content and its dissemination domestically and abroad.
If that is not enough, let us consider the opinion of the Writers Guild of Canada on digital locks. According to the guild, the only option the bill offers to creators when it comes to digital locks is the freezing of current revenue streams for creators. It creates an illogical loophole in the copyright bill by taking away the very rights the bill grants to consumers in its other sections.
If that is not enough, let us consider the opinion of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, SOCAN. SOCAN believes that copyright law amendments should facilitate access to creative content on new media and ensure that creators are fairly compensated for the use of their creative content on new media.
Access must go hand in hand with compensation. Without this balance, the creation of creative content would eventually decrease as Canadian creators would be unable to make a living and compete with other countries worldwide.
The government has said it is giving rights holders the tools they need in order to develop products, market them and get paid for them, that this bill is about protecting creators from piracy, but artists themselves disagree. The government's sloppy legislation forgets that copyright covers a very wide range of artistic media using cutting-edge technology to create art.
Digital locks may work for software, but they are a restrictive and unpopular option when it comes to entertainment and artistic content, and are likely to be selected against in the open market as they were with music. Digital locks are neither forward looking nor in consumers' or creators' best interests.
I would also note that this is the first time I have spoken to this piece of legislation. There are artists in my riding. If I had not had a chance to speak to this bill, it would have been very unfortunate for them, for my chair is not my chair, but the chair of the people who elected me.