Bill C-11 committee  If Bill C-11 goes through unamended, we're actually inviting this as an exception. It will confuse. It already is confusing, as I mentioned to folks, today. When you think of the CCH ruling, the Copyright Board and the Federal Court of Appeal have both said that what's happeni

Bill C-11 committee  Have they?

Bill C-11 committee  The Supreme Court is hearing it yet again on education.

Bill C-11 committee  I find that of little comfort. It's certainly not the comfort that is provided in other jurisdictions like the U.K. or the U.S., which is often quoted as an example. Why would there be an issue? Again, if it's not an issue for the educational sector, as they have said in various

Bill C-11 committee  Let me help you. We specifically put in a request for an amendment. You have that amending language that specifically says that if it has an adverse impact on the market, it is not fair dealing. That's the confusion. I'll let Jackie give you the better answer—

Bill C-11 committee  —but fair dealing and free dealing are two completely different things.

Bill C-11 committee  Yes, that is correct. Right now it's far too open to interpretation. We literally have customers today, literally today, who are walking away from our existing licence agreements because they believe that Bill C-11 will make these materials free. They are asking why they would si

Bill C-11 committee  We've had over 30 universities and colleges walk away from licensing in higher education right now. There are 30. The two universities that signed recently—U of T and UWO—are being absolutely criticized and assailed in the media, vilified, for doing this. They are being asked if

Bill C-11 committee  They often are. What is happening more and more is hybrids. What's going on with the amount of digital sales in K to 12, notwithstanding the obvious progress that's being made, is literally minuscule, and based on current funding for schools for hardware, infrastructure, and gett

Bill C-11 committee  That happens today all the time. We'll sell an e-book that goes with that printed text. You could somehow prevent just sending out 300 copies through some digital mechanism, but what mechanism is there to prevent photocopying half of this particular book? I am not aware of any me

Bill C-11 committee  Part of the answer is that we don't actually sell floppy disks or CDs. It's web access, right? That's how it's done now. It's not a suite of copies.

Bill C-11 committee  Absolutely, and that's exactly what we're looking for. It's troublesome, it's well-intended, and we get it. We support the need for an exception, but as it's currently written, it's the promise of ongoing litigation and uncertainty for publishers. We employ thousands of Canadian

Bill C-11 committee  It's a risk that people will no longer take, and in many cases the amount of margin in a small market, where we have to compete with fellows like Mr. Swail here, who is a fierce competitor.... It's a very small market, and we know if we don't get 50% or 60% of the expected market

Bill C-11 committee  It will vary by project. In some boards it is the board that will make a decision on a board-wide basis. In many cases it's school by school, and on custom projects, on which we do a lot of work, smaller provinces—for example, Newfoundland or P.E.I. will want a very specific text

Bill C-11 committee  Sure. For example, Ontario will come up with a curriculum requirement in science. We'll decide whether or not it's a viable business case. Science is very expensive. There are a lot of digital assets, photo images, and so forth. We'll invest x hundreds of thousands of dollars, as