Edmonton — Round Table and Public Hearings on Copyright

Date: August 21, 2009, 1:30 p.m. MT

Location:
Canada Place Conference Centre
Suite 201 – 2nd Floor
9700 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, AB

Principals: See particiant list

Subject:
Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry and Member of Parliament for Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont, Mike Lake, hosts a round table on copyright.

Download: Audio Recording (MP3, 43.0 MB)

Transcript

Albert Cloutier: So good afternoon everyone. I am delighted to introduce Mike Lake, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry and also Member of Parliament for Edmonton – Mill Woods - Beaumont who will shortly open the discussion by offering some remarks.

But before it turn it over to Mr. Lake I would like to introduce myself and generally describe how the roundtable process will roll out today. I'm Albert Cloutier, I'm the moderator and I'm the director of the Copyright and International Intellectual Property Policy Directorate at the Department of Industry.

Among it's others duties this directorate is responsible for advising the Minister of Industry on the framework of copyright policy.

There are a number of you here today that have been invited to share your views on copyright reform as part of the consultation process and we're looking forward to hearing from all of you.

Just a few things of note, technical and process, we have translation services here today, so please feel free to participate in the official language of your choice. And to help ensure a high quality of translation we ask that you speak clearly and slowly. Ideally you should speak about 4 to 6 inches from the mike and please don't forget to turn them on and off. On while you're speaking and off afterwards.

We want the discussion to be free flowing and it is intended to canvass all your views on copyright reform. And to ensure that our time together is productive. And because we want to hear from all of you I would ask that you try to keep your remarks concise and focussed on the issues of importance to you. So our general benchmark would be to try and keep your remarks to about three minutes or so if you can.

We are using the translation services and the microphones in order to record the discussion this afternoon and as we've indicated in the invitation that we sent out to you, the discussion will eventually be posted in both official languages on the copyright consultation website. Both as an audio file and as a written transcript.

The photos that are being taken this afternoon may also be posted on the website. And so for this reason we ask that you introduce yourselves both your name and your organization before you speak.

The roundtable will last approximately 90 minutes and I may intervene if needed to ask you to wrap up your comments so that everybody has a fair opportunity to share their views. I would also ask that you turn off any BlackBerry that you may have as I understand that this may interfere with some of the recording equipment.

So before Mr. Lake makes his opening remarks it would be good if we could just do a quick tour de table where you indicate who you are and who you represent. So I'll turn it over to my right.

Barbara Motzney: Hi, I'm Barbara Motzney, I'm the Director General of Copyright Policy at Canadian Heritage.

Linda Cameron: Good afternoon, I'm Linda Cameron, I'm the director of the University of Alberta Press.

Shane Kennedy: Hello, I'm Shane Kennedy with Lone Pine Productions, or Lone Pine Publishing.

Ernie Ingles: Good afternoon, I'm Ernie Ingles, Vice Provost, University of Alberta.

Myrna Kostash: Myrna Kostash, artist representing (Inaudible).

Jane Bisbee: Jane Bisbee, the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association.

Chris Henderson: I'm Chris Henderson, I'm the Director of Research and Protocol Affairs for the University of Alberta Students Union.

Alexandra Hatcher: Alexandra Hatcher and I'm Executive Director of the Alberta Museums Association.

Rick Leech: Rick Leech, I'm here representing the Library Association of Alberta, good afternoon everybody.

Jordan Reiniger: I'm Joe Reiniger from Mike Lake's office.

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Mike Lake: And I am Mike Lake, I am the Member of Parliament for Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry. And I'll take the floor for a few minutes here, but I'll give you a heads up after I'm done speaking, what we'll do is we'll come back to Linda and then we'll maybe go around the table again and take a little bit more time to articulate sort of your opening thoughts on the issue of copyright and then we'll open up the floor for some hopefully lively discussion on the issue, it's an important issue obviously to everyone at the table and for those that will be following these proceedings afterwards online and reading the transcripts.

But I want to start by thanking everyone for joining us here today and saying that our government is very pleased to be holding nation wide consultations on copyright modernization. And we very much appreciate your participation in today's session.

We've been hosting roundtables and town halls throughout the country to hear from Canadians on copyright. I know that many of you have been following along and reading the transcripts of those as well. We want to ensure that all Canadians have the opportunity to express their views on how copyright legislation should be modernized.

So we're embracing technology to provide as many people as possible with access to our consultative process. To date we've received over 1,000 submissions on the website. As well as written submissions and real time discussions like today's that are also interactive web based conversations going on.

The online forum is allowing users to create their own threads of discussion and comments on what others have to say. More than 1,500 comments have been posted as Canadians contribute to the discussion regarding copyright modernization.

RRS feeds and Twitter are allowing Canadians to keep up to speed on the latest developments and the consultations which began four weeks ago are now at their halfway point. So far the response has been great, the feedback has been constructive and the level of debate is one of which we can all be proud and I'm sure we'll continue that today.

These consultations will enable our government to bring forward a copyright modernization bill for a Canada on the cutting edge of the digital economy. In closing let me just say that I'm very much looking forward to hearing your views about modernizing Canada's copyright legislation. So with that we'll move to Linda to maybe make some initial comments on behalf of the University of Alberta Press.

Linda Cameron: Thank you and I'd like to thank the Ministers of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and Industry for the opportunity to speak to copyright. It's a very important topic. I have six, seven points I'd like to address very quickly and briefly. They include the future is not, is a knowledge based industry, knowledge has value, copyright law makes the knowledge industry possible, hold the line on fair dealing, just so that you know exactly where I'm coming from as we start, copyright collectives work and technical protection measures matter.

And if it's alright I'd like to read this so that I can get through it fairly quickly, okay. And then I'd be delighted to discuss later. Government choices with respect to copyright will have an important impact on our future. These choices will affect how stories are told and how information changes hands.

Both our culture and our economy have high stakes in the decisions being made now. Therefore it is timely and appropriate that the Ministers of Canadian Heritage and Industry have joined in an effort to gather information and opinion on copyright reform. And I just want to remind us all what copyright is, it is the exclusive legal right of ownership granted for a specific period to an author to print, publish, perform, film or record original literary, artistic or musical materials.

So the raw material of the future is knowledge as I mentioned earlier. Ensuring the climate of support and protection for those whose business it is to create and disseminate knowledge is therefore essential.

If I may have your indulgence I'm going to give you two examples of ownership and the right to be compensated for the use of personal property that might resonate with you.

Imagine you're a farmer and you till the soil, you select the perfect seeds, you plant, spray, irrigate and finally you're about to harvest your crop and earn revenue. Suddenly swarms of people are permitted to go onto your land and take whatever they chose from your carefully cultivated crop and not pay for it. Would you have the money and the heart to start again?

Or imagine you're a business person and you have a unique product to sell. You carefully explore the marketplace, you contract with suppliers and you create and promote your product. Just as you're about to open your doors and welcome your customers, swarms of people are permitted to go into your place of business and take as much as they like of your unique product and not pay you for it. Would you have the money and the heart to start again? And I have been both a farmer and a business person and I would not have the money and the heart to start again.

Knowledge is a product of research and experience gained through dedication and hard work. It has value and the people who invest in the creation of knowledge from the originator including authors, musicians, playwrights, etcetera through to the distributors including publishers like myself need your commitment to support their right to be compensated for the creation and investment that they make in an equitable manner.

I would like to quote Carolyn Wood who is Executive Director of the Association for Canadian Publishers who spoke at the roundtable in Winnipeg. Carolyn said copyright law is what makes our industry possible. The sale of copies and of the rights to others to sell copies is publishers sole source of revenue. We don't sell advertising, we don't sell merchandise and we don't do performances.

The concept of fair dealing has been raised frequently during the course of the previous roundtables and I have read the transcripts from the previous roundtables. Currently the fair dealing clauses of the Canadian copyright act allow users to make single copies of portions of works for research and private study.

There is considerable pressure by some individuals to greatly expand the scope of fair dealing. It is critically important to the preservation of the Canadian publishing industry to hold the line on fair dealing.

Let me explain why. Expanded terms of fair dealing will have two immediate detrimental effects on the Canadian publishing industry. First it will jeopardize Canadian publishers ability to publish by eroding critical financial resources. And no Canadian publishing means many Canadian authors will not be published and those voices will be silenced. And secondly, respect for property rights which is what copyright is will be diminished.

Currently we have the good fortune in Canada to have a copyright collective called Access Copyright whose role it is to make access to copyrighted material easy and reasonably priced. It is neither necessary nor desirable to give away for free the copyrighted property of authors and publishers. According to Roanie Levy who is the general counsel at Access Copyright, thanks to Access Copyright licenses, teachers and students as well as employees of corporations and not for profits across Canada have access to millions of published works and copy hundreds of millions of pages a year while ensuring that copyright owners and creators are fairly remunerated for the use of their words. Sorry about that. Therefore no broad educational exception is needed.

And I just have one more point to make. In closing I'd like to talk about technical protection measures to protect intellectual property and I'd like to use an example again of that. It would be equivalent to, lets say somebody walked past your house and saw something inside on the table that they wanted to take. And they would have the right just to go and take it.

If you allow people to break through technical protection measures that's exactly what you're doing. You're allowing them to go through the lock on the door and take what doesn't belong to them without any penalty whatsoever and I don't think that's the way that we want to proceed.

So in closing I'd like everyone to think about and to remember that our ability to not only compete but to lead the world in a knowledge based economy rests with the people who are going to make the decision about copyright. So please consider the impact that any changes to copyright laws in our country will have on our culture and our economy and vote wisely. Not just our industry, but our stories and our recorded knowledge rely on your choices. Thank you for your attention.

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Mike Lake: Thank you very much. I think what we'll do is we went beyond the three minutes there. I think we'll probably maybe say three to five minutes cause I think everybody probably has a little bit to say on this issue. And then we'll move to the discussion I want to just be fair. So I think you see this little device in front of us and I believe probably when there's one minute left the light will turn yellow, I think. So that kind of gives you an idea and then, oh, two minutes left the light will turn yellow and then it will turn red when the time is up. So we'll move to Shane now and the floor is yours.

Shane Kennedy: Thank you and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. We're all so very interested in where you're headed with this. And I know from talking to you earlier that it seems your hearts and your direction are in the right place to try and find a path through this very complex world that we're facing right now.

So just some background, I'm the publisher and owner of Lone Pine Publisher. We're a North American leader in outdoor and history books. We publish roughly over 800 books over the last 30 years. But I'm also here speaking on behalf of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.

And in regards to copyright I'd like to speak on the issues of the possible inclusion of the such as clause, the use of TPM's and how we might see the evolution of book publishing and the use of our collectives to provide a business model that works for the users as well as the copyright holders.

So as a framework for this, rather than being too politic, but this book we just published, we spent 9 years gathering this and consulting with Aboriginal communities on the Native use of plants and writing it, gathering it, 9 years. And then we printed 11,000 copies and we put it in our warehouse and I can lock that warehouse and turn the key and it might take me five or six years to sell through that stock and perhaps even longer to recoup the investment I made on that.

And even now we're devising books that might take us five to nine years to realize. And we know that we're published it into a digital world. So we're very much on side with you to understand that digital world that we're creating, the investment we're creating, the economy we're creating towards that.

But if we give away too many commissions in the "such as" clause particularly or that breaking the TPM's it's like giving away the key to my warehouse to users because that digital copy is infinitely copiable(ph).

I understand and support the legitimate fair dealing when it is defined clearly and unambiguously. But not when it is extended vaguely. An inclusion of the term such as puts the onus on us to police and fight for our rights without the protection of precise law to support us.

We cannot afford to protect this book from illegitimate uses or infringers that have the wiggle room for a just such as clause. When we think of what Google has already done and with it attempting to push back copyright law in the US with a preemptive strike of the digital copying, and then striving at a lower court approval of a negotiated settlement that could set the precedent for us. In the case of the Google settlement the legal cost were $45 million in US. We won't be able to pay those kinds of legal costs to protect ourselves when someone with deep pockets challenges us because our laws do not have enough teeth, we may have to capitulate to them.

For those choices of who we are as a country and a culture should be made in government by legislators. Not on a battlefield where the, who has the bigger legal team wins. Obviously that's why you're holding these consultations to figure out our path down this road. And I appreciate that you're trying to steer us and be clear about the laws ahead of us.

Now we are searching for recent and hopefully inspired vision that reflects the consensus of who we are as a people and how we hope to travel into this universe of intellectual property. The vague clause such as such as opens up the debate and forces us to defend ourselves with the money we just don't have.

Some user groups are arguing that the erosion of some of the protection that is currently offered by the Act is appropriate in order to have greater access to digital works. But the infrastructure and innovation, the programs and systems administered by companies and collectives is recently starting to emerge. It's changed a great deal in the last two years.

One publisher I saw recently said it's changed more in the last two years then it has in the last two hundred. So we're striving to catch up and the world that we'll be creating around us, the business model we'll be creating around us will be very different in five years. And you're going to be creating legislation that's going to steer us into a path of many decades ahead.

But we are rapidly inventing a system to make our works easily accessible and transportable to alternative platforms that would respect accommodations for fair dealing.

While the evolving work of collective organizations, with the evolving work of collective organizations, the access will be there. Most publishers that I know are readying themselves and the structure is very quickly coming into being. My firm has already converted 375 of our books to electronic books. But to some extent we're holding back on releasing them electronically because we're waiting to see what you'll do.

We know that in a physical form we can protect those books. But if I let them out too quickly and I don't have the protections in the digital form, then I've eroded my existing market and I may not be here with enough invention and enough creation to sustain ourselves in the coming decades. And I may have to release the books in different forums.

We're waiting to see whether we can protect them. We'd like to create an economy, an intellectual property economy that we can have it and we can invest in knowing that there's a resource there and there's return on that economy.

So we're waiting to see the draft of the new Act so that can determine of our releasing this book in a digital form now, if there's adequate protection I'll be able to let the cow out of the barn. If not, I'll hold it in my own warehouse. I wanted to go for the farm metaphor.

I'll also have the means to keep investing in another one thousand titles. And some of those will take another nine years to develop. So quickly just to end this, thank you for your consciousness, your leadership on this and please respect the fact that we won't want to break our TPM's, we won't, unless it's legitimate fair dealing. And we won't to see a such as clause be so vague that Google or others might challenge us and then we have to fight it in court. Thank you.

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Ernie Ingles: Okay, well there you go, technology and the essence of copyright I suppose. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here. While my card says I'm from the University of Alberta Library which indeed I am, I'm actually here as Vice Provost the University and representing the University and it's some 50,000 folk strong who make up it's community on this issue.

In terms of copyright, the University of Alberta is home to educators, researchers, creators, scholars and consumers. The consumers being mostly our students. Many of whom are faced with day-to-day situations where they must interpret and apply copyright law as well as the rules and restrictions around licenses and contracts.

Within that portfolio rests responsibility for copyright administration, providing support, advice and information to these individuals. Throughout this consultation process there appears to be a recurring theme that when advocating for fair dealing and user rights, educational institutions want something for nothing.

In supporting our campus on copyright I can say this perception is misguided as our institution and I suspect many others compensates rights holders significantly for licenses, royalties, subscriptions and contracts. It is our experience as advisors to our campus that many individuals act in good faith and strive to do the right thing. We see the challenges these individuals face as they attempt to act in good faith and are presented with restrictive contract terms, complex licensing regimes, apparent monopolies as well as traditionally restrictive interpretation of the Act, including fair dealing.

A response of frustration is not uncommon from these individuals as they strive to acquiesce to such terms. Much of the literature and publications and I would use the word propaganda, and I don't use that in any pejorative sense, provided to the education community on interpreting and applying copyright has traditionally supported a narrow risk-averse focus.

It has been five years since the 2004 CCH decision where the Supreme Court of Canada iterated that research not be interpreted restrictively. However we continue to see a risk-adverse mind-set prevail within the academy. While some within the education and library community have started to exercise their right to deal fairly with materials post CCH, many still do not. They are fearful and that fear has come from misguided information with regard to the Copyright Act.

Reforms to the Act must ensure a law is in place that is flexible enough to adapt and keep pace with new methods of course delivery and communication. It must not only represent the rights of authors and rights holders, but it must meet the needs of today's students as well as those who serve them.

Increasingly instructors recognize that learners are engaged by non traditional teaching and communication practices, non traditional teaching and communication practices, and are adapting to incorporate tools such as broadcast, web cast, narrated power points, blogs, wikis and digital learning games.

Our instructors and library staff communicate and connect with students using social networking mediums including Facebook, Twitter, Second Life and so forth. While much teaching and research still takes place in the face-to-face classroom, scholarly discourse continues into the virtual learning environment as well. Materials traditionally available in class are now used and distributed in entirely different ways.

We've identified several areas that require consideration during this reform and you will be getting a brief from the University of Alberta that iterates those and gives them a little more shape than this, my few comments today. And they include the issues such as the circumvention of digital locks for non authenting(ph) purposes, recognition that all persons living with disabilities including but not limited to the perceptively disabled should have the ability to access copyrighted materials in a format specific to their needs.

That Crown copyright be abolished or made more readily available to Canadians via licensing regimes such as a creative comments license. And I think if one and one thing only were able to come out of this reform it will be the abolition of Crown copyright because I think the motivations under Crown copyright are so different then the motivations that are being discussed by my publishing colleagues here today.

The library patrons can receive desktop delivery of inter-library loan which is something that we are uniquely unable to do in, across the globe. That statutory damages be aligned to reflect actual loss and protection afforded to individuals who act in good faith when they believe they are dealing fairly with materials.

That contracts and licenses not undermine the ability of individuals to exercise their fair dealing rights. That existing educational exceptions be amended to reflect the shift from in-class learning to different methods of teaching including distance and online course delivery.

And lastly but perhaps most importantly, we recommend, strongly recommend and bring forward one thing that has been brought forward throughout the consultative process, and that is that the words "such as" be incorporated into the language of the act so that a list of fair dealing purposes becomes illustrative rather then exhaustive.

And it is our opinion Mr. Chairman that ironically, and it is ironic, that by putting in the words "such as" you make it far more explicit then you might thing. It's the implicitness of the lack of those words that is causing the confusions that I refer to.

The goal of the recommendations made today is not to encourage a laissez-faire attitude or to encourage infringement within education. But our hope for a reasonable reform of the Act which permits the academy to fixate less on rules and restrictions and more on research, innovation and the sharing of knowledge. Thank you.

Mike Lake: Well thank you, thank Ernie and now we'll move over across the table to Myrna.

Myrna Kostash: It's flashing red.

Unknown Male: (Off microphone)

Myrna Kostash: Oh I see, now it's on, oh yes, alright. So yes. Thank you for inviting me.

Unknown Male: (Off microphone)

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Myrna Kostash: That doesn't count. Okay, alright. Okay thank you for this invitation. I'm particularly pleased as I'm the only creator of such, qua(ph) creator here. And just to set the tone I want to point out that means I'm the only one whose paying myself for my time here today.

Much of what I have, will say to you is, echos what Linda Cameron already said which I'm delighted that she is the case, because she's one of my publishers. I've been a professional writer for more than 30 years and have written numerous books, articles and documentaries and along the way I've served as a term as president of the Writers Guild of Alberta and a term as Chair of the Writers Union of Canada. And I've adapted the gamut of new technologies which have profoundly affected the way I go about my work.

I once dreamed of upgrading myself to an IBM Selectric electric typewriter. But the K Pro word processor came along instead. It didn't even have memory, it had big floppy discs but it changed my work habits completely.

However nothing has had the impact of the internet. Some say it is the most significant innovation affecting writers since the printing press. Certainly it is already affecting the way books and magazines are produced, sold and read and since these activities take place in the marketplace, they have commercial implications.

This means the way I make my living as a full time professional writer is undergoing big changes, a precarious living at the best of times. In these consultations you will have heard much about copyright as the legal foundation that permits creators to control and be compensated for their work. But today's digital technology means copies of the work can be endlessly made and shared free of charge.

On the one hand, this new capacity to share information, ideas and creativity globally is exciting for writers as well as for consumers. On the other hand free digital delivery of intellectual and cultural production is an enormous problem for the professional creators who produce it.

The internet culture has evolved in such a way that users assume the material they are reading is free. And that it somehow just arrives on their screens without their having to contemplate that it may have been created, most vividly that Shane has pointed out. That it may have been created by say a professional writer. In any case they don't want to pay to download it. A recent European commission report on digital competitiveness claims that a full third of the digital generation, young people who grew up with the internet are not willing to pay anything at all, quote, for cultural production access through online media.

Now some internet activists demand that all cultural production should be free. And others argue that fair dealing should be expanded to allow more copyright material to be used free of charge, whether music, visual art or books.

They claim they act against corporate, big media. But in fact they're acting against the creators of that culture by making demands that will in effect force the creators to treat their work as a hobby, and find other ways to make a living.

And interestingly they never demand that people who work in universities, schools and libraries, often the ones who introduce them to this culture should volunteer their labour and forego their salaries.

Writers and other creators are entitled to be paid for their work. In fact they need payment for their work in order to continue to produce it, I think that point has been made and I'll carry on.

If the affective rate of return on the young writer's work approaches zero, how do we sustain the next generation of creators? The first principle of copyright is to encourage cultural production, how do we even entice them into digital publication if their work is not given sufficient copyright protection on the internet?

Arguments for, about free use of creators works, educational purposes or exceptions in the Copyright Act continue to be pressed for by Provincial Ministries of Education among others and here again there's an economic, clash of economic interests between educators and professional writers.

And the danger of the Copyright Act encumbered by further exemptions from copyright will not work in a fair and balanced way. Now fair dealing is as it is in our current Copyright Act works relatively well and I propose does not need revision. Only very occasionally have Canadian courts been asked to fine tune the balance, the balance between creators and users that is there in fair dealing.

Nor should it be forgotten that writers are also users, frequent users of the copyright works of others. So you know we're not unsympathetic towards the, of the demand to liberate material on the internet.

Where government should innovate is to bring in legislation that will strengthen collective licensing. And again I echo Linda Cameron's comments about Access Copyright. I treasure that cheque that I get. And the conclusion then, writers are not looking for punitive measures against those who wish to share with others, others works that they have enjoyed, or to stop them from sharing in most instances as long as the mechanisms are put in place that will mean that writers will be paid for their work.

Collective societies could play an important role in this but for this to happen copyright legislation must provide the protection and legal framework that will allow us to earn a reasonable income from our work.

Mike Lake: Thank you Myrna and now we'll move to Jane.

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Jane Bisbee: That's okay, I'll try to be short. Thanks very much and I, for having us here today, and for traipsing out to Alberta. Although some of you are home. So I'm going to try to keep this short because I'd like to hear, I'm very interested to hear what you have to think about where we're going in this question and a lot of what my points are have been touched on already.

AMPIA is the industry association that represents about 250 members, 3,500 people working in that very slippery field we make our product in, digital. So we're already, we can't lock it in the warehouse right from the get go.

I like the farm analogy, although I usually think about what my members do as the manufacturing pursuit. They are taking an intellect, a property and they're adding value to that property and creating a cultural artefact which they then market to their public. Unfortunately it is an intellectual property which as Myrna pointed out very eloquently is a really slippery thing for people to understand is a property that has value. And it something that isn't created freely with no effort at all. There are people who are trying to earn their living creating this particular property.

It's challenging when from a very early age people don't understand that what's between the covers of a book or what's on that DVD they have at home actually doesn't belong to them. They have sort of leased it and made a deal where they get to use that and make use of it but they don't in the end actually own it, it's not their property, and that's a very hard concept for most people on the street to understand.

But somehow we have to get to the point where either they understand that or they get, we find a way for the value to be recognized. Somehow it seems that writers whether they're writing for screen or writing it for a book are expected to be breatharians(ph), they're the only people who aren't automatically going to be paid in this transaction on every case and we need to find a way to address that fairly. I mean I vote with Linda that hold the line on fair dealing, we do have to find a way to make it work for both sides of the equation, the broadcasters who are my members certainly want to be able to show that property but they want to be able to protect the rights that they've purchased as well which are defined to some extent as a property right as well.

So if the knowledge-based industries are where the future is, then we need to find a way to protect this transaction. It is, it is a transaction between a user and a consumer, a consumer and a producer, forgive me. And that we need to somehow through copyright law find a way for both sides to feel that they're being treated fairly in the transaction. And I'll leave it at that.

Mike Lake: And we'll move to Chris there to your left.

Chris Henderson: I'm not going to take too much time, Vice Provost Ingles did actually a very good job outlining our concerns as well. And I thank him for that. I will say that the main interest for students in this, in the course of this legislation coming forward again is, has almost nothing to do with iPods.

The students are the next generation of content producers, we would like to see our work protected as much as current content producers. However at the same time the students we want to, we want the means to conduct research easily and innovatively. This is a very exciting digital age as I'm sure that the Ministries present can attest to from the way that you're engaging Canadians on this issue.

We don't of course want to allow people the, you know the key to warehouse or a run on the farm, but we must facilitate teaching and learning in, with today and tomorrow's technologies. It's, and I think what we're looking for most, sort of to sum it up is we are looking for a liberal interpretation of user rights in this next Bill.

Students are championing this for several reasons, they want as manufacturers of creative content they want the ability to profit from their works, but they, they want the ability to secure full and competitive participation in the upcoming global economy and that is going to depend on us having access to high quality post secondary education system which robust access is to copyrighted materials for education and research is a vital component of that.

And I think we'll reveal more as we discuss it, but yes, that's where, I mean, sorry, to an extent actually I should very quickly note as much as I'm here with the University of Alberta Students Union, to a certain degree I am here as a representative of our national lobby group, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations. I, we have and you'll be receiving, and you may have already received their document on this particular issue. So I'll be reiterating a lot of that as well.

Mike Lake: And we'll move to Alexandra.

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Alexandra Hatcher: Thank you for allowing the museum community to have a voice at this table. It's a great opportunity for us to put forward our concerns and some possible solutions from our perspective as well. So thank you.

Museums operate in the public good and on behalf of society and with that are obligated to serve the public interest. We accomplish this through acquiring, sharing and disseminating knowledge. Museum collections are held on the public trust and this differentiates public museums, galleries and archives from other cultural industries.

Access to museum collections is paramount to ensure that a museum is fulfilling it's function as a public institution and providing resources that are available to a variety of users is among it's responsibilities to public education.

The public for, who for all intents and purposes are the owners of the public collections, have a right to see the work whether it is on-site, online or in a publication. Museums use copyrighted work in exhibitions, research, publication and promotions. And as museums are dealing with hundreds of artefacts, archival documents or artworks the...

Mike Lake: One second, if you could just slow down just a little bit for the translation it might be helpful.

Alexandra Hatcher: Sorry. Museums use copyrighted works in exhibitions, research, publication and promotions. As museums are dealing with hundreds of artefacts, archival documents or artworks the issue of volume arises. It can be prohibitive to clear and finance copyright when assembling an exhibition, conducting research or developing a digital collection database.

The purpose of activities that utilize copyrighted material in museums are about public access for education, research and community development. It's not commercial or in the private interest. Because of this fact, there cannot be significant resource allocation to copyright issues for nonprofit organizations.

In talking to some of the members of the Alberta Museums Association there have been several issues that have arisen over the last little while in regards to copyright, right that they wanted to put forward. The first is access to museum collections online. Researchers can access museum resources rapidly and effectively through web sites and databases of a digitalized collections and accessing representations of an object or an image along with the supporting documentation is of great benefit.

Museums need to have the freedom to use images within their own permanent collection without penalty. If a museum cannot find someone to provide copyright approval in time for an exhibition opening they shouldn't be stopped from using that image. Definition of artistic work within the Act doesn't cover all current art forms such as installation art, digital art or other new media.

Defining what the master and control copies are with regards to digital images is also an issue. Clarifying the issue are digital media and moral rights. And access and appropriation of a visual image when image is used for new creative processes.

Some of our possible solutions or suggestions for solutions that have been discussed in the last little while include the development of a national list of visual artists and copyright holders similar to the watch list, w-a-t-c-h, that is a conglomeration of the United States and the United Kingdom based out of the University of Texas where you can search online for the copyright holder to a particular artist's work.

Again redefining artist work within the Act to include media and installation and other forms of expression. We'd like to preserve the exemption for museums, libraries and archives to provide copies for research and to private study. To clarify the distinction between the ownership of the image and ownership of copyright. To allow for new technologies to control access. And to develop a due diligence requirement that is not a material strain on an organization that has limited human and financial resources. Thank you.

Mike Lake: Thanks Alexandra and we'll move finally to Rick Leech.

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Rick Leech: I echo everybody's thanks for the opportunity to participate today. The Library Association of Alberta, the Canadian Library Association and our sister library associations across Canada represent approximately 57,000 library staff members and thousands of libraries and we serve millions of Canadians each year.

As such we feel the public interest and equitable access to knowledge is at the core of our work. Copyright is integral to what we do in libraries. It affects what we can provide, how we can provide it and the cost for providing it. So we do recognize the creators rights must be protected. They have to make a living and they have to be fairly compensated for their works.

We would also argue that much of that protection can be found in the basic principles of copyright. There is a strong economic monopoly to produce or reproduce works for the creators life plus fifty years. That is the basic tenant. Obviously it has been complicated by the impact of technology, the fact that digital materials can be so easily copied and transmitted.

I would say to the government of Canada though that you must take into account a fair balance when considering these types of issues, the balance between users rights and the dissemination of cultural property and information and the balance of the creator's right to a fair compensation. We concur with the Supreme Court of Canada in the CCH decision that this proper balance lies not only in recognizing a creator's right, but in giving due right to the users rights.

I'll highlight a few issues that concern libraries and many of them have been discussed on the opposite sides of the issue already. Fair dealing obviously for libraries is a fair dealing for private research and study is arguably our most important exception to copyright. The Supreme Court has said it should be given a large and liberal interpretation and has quantified it as a user's right. It has brought, the Supreme Court has also brought some certainty to the issue by providing us with six factors to be considered when, to consider when a dealing is fair.

We suggest the Copyright Act incorporate and expand on these elements relating to fair dealing. This could be done by incorporating these factors into the Act and by not restricting the uses enumerated into that section similar to what has been done in the United States.

Further we strongly believe that this right should not be subject to the application of legally uncircumventable technological protection letters or the unilateral imposition of restrictive contracts as I would suggest was done in Bill C-61, the government's last previous amending legislation.

Technological protection measures, digital ox's we like to call them, and Ernie can probably provide much more statistics than I can. But the 2006–2007 Canadian universities spent almost 50% of their collections budget on digital content. These digital locks have a negative effect on fair dealing. We recommend that the government implementing the (Inaudible) treaties prevent the circumvention of digital locks for non-infringing purposes. It is I think a fairly simple and implicable(ph) concept. There's some new legislative precedence for that, the former Bill C-60 and the laws in Denmark.

We urge the government not to criminalize Canadians as was done in Bill C-61 by making it illegal to circumvent a digital lock for many legitimate purposes such as fair dealing, preservation of library materials or the reproduction of materials for which copyright has expired.

Ernie has talked about the perceptively disabled and I think it's important to recognize that these individuals have a difficult time at present to obtain and use their materials that are appropriately formatted for their needs. Something that hasn't been discussed is the Chaffey Amendment to the US copyright law which has made the interchange of these materials between Canada and the US has prohibited it. Better experts than I can give you the details but we certainly from the people that deal in this suggest that this is an international problem that the government of Canada should give some consideration to.

Crown copyright has been mentioned, government publications, government information is the property of Canadians and I think should be easily accessible by Canadians.

One final one nobody has touched on today is internet service provider liability. We support a notice and notice regime that's in line with the position that's been taken by the Canadian courts rather than adopting, which I think I could argue with the US style of a notice and take down, so maybe I got this wrong, we support a notice and notice regime, not the US style notice and take down regime which I think many would argue is a failure in the United States. There are many nonprofit organizations such as libraries, school boards, universities, etcetera who could be considered ISP's and who this could impact.

Notice and take down in an environment where it's not illegal to claim false copyright can certainly prejudice the users rights and can also lead to attempts to censor information via the courts. Thank you for your time.

Mike Lake: Thank you, thank you very much and thank you all for your input in starting this out. Now I will move to the sort of discussion format here. Just a quick comment, Jane had made a suggestion that she'd like to hear my view of where we're going. But that's not what this is about today. This is really more about hearing what your views are on where we should be going before we make, take decisions and move forward. So I really actually before we get into my ideas or prompting in terms of where we should go with the discussion now, I want to just sort of see if there's anyone that has any comments on anything that they heard someone else say at the table right now. You know if you, we'll do exactly what Myrna just did, if you can catch my attention by just holding up a finger and maybe your index finger would work well. And we'll, then you, we'll call on you in an orderly fashion and if you can just make fairly brief interventions then everybody will get a good chance to have discussions. So Myrna we'll start with you.

Myrna Kostash: Thank you. I'm interested in Alexandra's point about the financial resources that have to be deployed in order to cover yourself, or to, you know to clear copyright I think is the word you used. Is there not some way that we can put that concern together with the notion of the collective licensing agency so that you're not having to go one item at a time? I'm not sure how it works in museums but because of Access Copyright we no longer have to keep that log beside every photocopier in the English department, right. So is there, is there any discussion going on between the two that would address that issue?

Alexandra Hatcher: Not that I'm aware of. But my understanding is that especially in museums that are dealing with art collections it is on a one, on a case by case basis, individual artefacts or a piece of art by piece of art.

Myrna Kostash: (Inaudible, off microphone)

Alexandra Hatcher: Exactly, yes, yes.

Mike Lake: Sorry?

Unknown Female: (Inaudible, off microphone)

Mike Lake: Pardon?

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Unknown female: I think that that's a very good idea Myrna and it's something that Access Copyright should pursue if they haven't been already. And I'll certainly bring that to their attention. I, can I take advantage of having the mike for a minute to ask a question? You talked about, and I'm very, very sympathetic with all of the arguments around the table. But one of the things that is a puzzle to me is as a publisher, when we want to acquire the usage of material that is resident in a museum, we have to pay for that. And you don't actually own it in the first place.

So I'm not pointing at you directly but it puzzles me why you would expect that we might give our stuff up freely, but we have to pay for things that the museums don't own anyway. You're holding it, but you don't own it.

Alexandra Hatcher: I think that's part of the comment that I made in regards to clarification around the ownership of the image itself and ownership of copyright. But sometimes there's a bit of misunderstanding just as a very broad sweeping statement around that. And for museums I think that there is some education that needs to happen around who owns what and how it can be actually utilized within whether it be research purposes or to provide for a publication for example. And with that it's also around revenue generation for ourselves and that I guess has over the last 10 years been a way to do that. But it's I think there's more education needed around those definition of those terms.

Mike Lake: Now if I could what I'll do is Shane had had his hand up I think earlier to comment and then Ernie wants to make a comment. So Shane did you want to say anything or...?

Shane Kennedy: Yes. I, I wanted to say that I actually do believe for legitimate uses of fair dealing that TPM's, taking TPM's makes sense. And particularly I think most of us are gearing ourselves up to accommodate that and make it available. We don't mean to put as you mention digital locks on the world. It's when that combination exists, perhaps less so with libraries but more so with the illegitimate infringement that is and will be increasingly incurring and some of the precedents of what we're already seeing being staked out now by Google.

So when we see that infringement happening it's very, a very clear infringement when the TPM is broken. So we're looking at that as the watershed component. Less so when we house it inside of our digital libraries. When I, I think we're wrestling over the components of the expansion of the infringement through the such as or the vaguarities(ph) of the "such as" clause.

You brought up the use of collectives though, and I wanted to say that we're trying to create a law now in this particular year where we were five years ago and where we will be five years from now will be quite different. The emergence of the collectives and the emergence of ourselves to accommodate fair dealing, to keep stride with it and understand it and to accommodate the disabled and usage, alternative usage and multiple copies required for different purposes. Much of that, the economy of that world will be evolving in the next five years. We'll be creating the mechanisms through micro-transactions. And we already have gone quite a distance with Acts of copyright.

And we will be going even further with, I mean our firm is involved in micro transactions of tiny downloads for cell phone videos. Much of that is emerging now. But economy is emerging and the access is there and even the permissions are increasingly there as we respond to that economy as it appears before us. Thank you.

Ernie Ingles: Thank you. I'd like to just respond to a couple of different things that folks have said. First perhaps to carry forward the agricultural metaphor a little bit, everybody in this room certainly with regard to copyright and probably in their everyday lives are individuals who are outstanding in their field. And that's as far as I'll go in terms of any, any metaphor.

But it's important to understand that in terms of the comment that I think Jane made and she referred, which I think is an extraordinarily important thing, to the people in the street. The people around this table today at least are not the people in the street. At least the people in the street who I think in the broader public arena don't understand copyright, they're not sure when they've breached something or not. They are young people who probably just need a little bit of education with regard to some of these issues. They're not out to put a rock star out of business by capturing songs. They just haven't been informed appropriately.

And I think it's some of that that we struggle with in terms of all this copyright. Those of us in institutions that deal with copyright issues on a day-to-day basis whether it's libraries, archives, educational institutions, school boards, so on and so forth, we understand the issues generally, there are lacuna in those issues that are a little bit strange, sometimes we don't understand. But we generally understand them. And we know what's proper and generally we know what's not proper.

Copyright in many ways is, I grew up in a small town in Saskatchewan and it's a little bit like standing on the street, middle of the street, 40 below, the wind is whistling, your car is across the street, the corner is down the way. But you know that jaywalking is not the thing to do at 2 in the morning. But you do it anyway because it's something that just needs to be done.

And some of the infringement I think is along that line. So part of what I think the challenge of government is, is not only to strike those appropriate balances that everybody has been referring to today, but to come up with some means that explains that in terms that are understandable to the people in the street.

Because those are the ones, and I think everybody we are creating an industry around trying to protect ourselves from the people in the street who are not necessarily meaning to be disrespectful to the notion of copyright, but just don't understand where the lanes are drawn. So that's the first thing.

The second thing, and it's a very interconnected and a complex world that we live in and I'm not going to beat or belabour this, but my colleague referred to the Google environment and the Google settlement. Don't want to beat on our beloved, the federal government, but in fact there have been groups that have been lobbying the government for some years now to do a made-in-Canada Google, I guess for lack of something else to call it, that would be sensitive to those kinds of things that are causing and have caused trouble, problems to the south of us. And to follow the lead that was followed in the European and whatnot to develop ways and means to do mass digitization in such a way and in such a fashion that was consistent with our culture and with our, the parameters that we hold to be dear on the values that we hold to be dear.

Two quite separate issues but I did want you to know Mr. Chairman that there have been many attempts to develop, to find the resources to do that. Ironically right now there is a fair bit of mass digitization being done consistent I believe with those values and principles that we hold dear in Canada, but actually being paid for out of Foundations headquartered in the United States. That is a real irony it seems to me that our heritage, we are here at the University of Alberta digitizing over 20 million pages of out of copyright Canadian material and that's being underwritten by an American Foundation. Despite the fact that we've tried endlessly to get Canadian resources.

So but these are still copyright issues and they overlap in terms of some of the things that I think we have to consider ourselves, that we have to consider.

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Mike Lake: Thanks Ernie. Jane I think you were next and then Rick.

Jane Bisbee: (Inaudible, off microphone) down this side of the table that I didn't speak of before which is that you have the joy of trying to come up with an act that's platform blind. In a way it is about the content and the consumer and trying to make the transaction. And so when we talked about ensuring that we covered all of the platforms, the best thing for us to do is to ignore the platforms and find the way to make the transaction work.

I heard a very interesting speaker recently talk about we need to stop worrying about how to monetize the technology and understand the behaviour about people use that technology. I think that's essentially what we're grappling with here.

Mike Lake: We'll move over to Rick.

Rick Leech: Much of this I certainly agree with. A couple of points, though, that Derrick, within the regime of copyright now there is strong economic monopolies that the creators and the rights holders can rely upon, and I think we sometimes lose sight of that. And the people that are commercially exploiting materials, there are provisions now and can certainly be fine tuned in any Copyright Act going forward that those people can be caught and punished.

It seems to me though that we are, we become at logger heads as to how far down that line, you know, we have to go to provide that protection. And I agree, there's no simple solutions and platform, the format, those are all difficult to apply on a case-by-case basis and I guess I would echo here your thought, Jane, that if we could add a layer that allows us to control those transactions, I suppose is useful although at this point I don't have any suggestions as to where that goes.

I would respond to one of your points, to say there's no property ownership in a book or in a DVD, but I would argue that me, when I buy a book or I buy a DVD I do acquire some rights to that. I acquire the rights to read, I acquire the rights to take in the bathtub and drop in the bathtub, lend it to my friend. And with a DVD I should have those similar rights, and I should have that right to put it into another format that either suits my perceptions or suits or my hardware, and yes, for my own use, absolutely.

And I guess I would echo then that I think Bill C-61 had missed the point, had missed that balance in those types of things and I'm glad we see that point.

Mike Lake: I'll come back to Jane then for that, but I just want to say that that's something that I've heard as a Member of Parliament from a lot of a people is to do with the digital locks and this sort of frustration that somebody buys a product, and you know, they have legitimate use for it but they don't necessarily want to use in the format that they buy it in. And now should there be some prohibition on turning it into a different format that they can then use for legitimate purposes, I'm curious to hear your…

Jane Bisbee: This is where this interesting division about ownership and ownership comes in. You own a physical book or the DVD, but you don't own the actual material that's in it. I don't own what Myrna wrote in the copies of her books that are sitting on my bookshelf, I have leased the right to have her writing in my home and available to me to use as I would like to use it, but I don't have the right to photocopy copies and hand them out to my reading group, right? That's, so it's that, it's the finding the balance.

Yes, there needs to be a way to find the way to allow for the allowable usage where it becomes appropriate in a classroom or wherever those sorts of uses are allowed, but it's that line between you own it, but you own the book but you don't own really the content. And it's tough to kind of accept that and get your head around it, and it's something that we need somehow to make people understand that the writer, the creator, the painter, the filmmakers, even a performer on stage is covered by that distinct performance is covered by copyright. So yes you use the content, but you don't own the content, you lease, or I don't even know what the right legal word is, the right to be able to use it. But you don't own it ultimately.

Mike Lake: Shane.

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Shane Kennedy: It's interesting where this is going and leading us to. Of course, where I appreciate what you're saying Rick, when you mentioned that we are responding to the marketplace, not really analysing the technology and we're trying to draft or create an Act that responds far beyond the technology we're seeing now. We know, we discussed amongst ourselves, bring in experts from all over the world and attend seminars all over the world looking at emerging models we're seeing appear in different countries.

So when we see there's, as you do in the film industry or other areas, a resistance to heavy DRMs or TPMs that we know that we have to create models, and we are actively involved in that, to say okay, well you get 5 copies and you can put it your own, 5 of your own devices. Or you can, if you lose all of those devices your purchase on iTunes was registered and so you can re download it. We're all looking at how those models will exist.

So when we're, because we have to respond, we have to satisfy you and all those other people in your constituency, all those readers that we have say, oh, if it's got that kind of DRM I'm not going to buy it. We know that we have to respond to that world, and we're creating the world, we're catching up with our own world. It's all so new that the collectives, the way that we handle micro transactions, the way that we handle registering our work without spying on people to find out what they're reading. That's something we're being careful of, because people are saying "oh, I don't everyone to have knowledge" the resistance of Google back to the Google, but everything in your gmail is being read so they know what your interests are and they're feeding you ads based on the content of your, there's great resistance to that kind of examination. So some of us are saying, "what models do we adopt where we have a DRM, you've registered it," you say "okay these devices are linked, we'll give you 5 copies. And if you lose them you'll be able to re download again."

We know that we're gearing up for that, we just haven't caught up with it yet. Access to copyright also hasn't caught up with some of the models of distribution. But when you dismantle in order to allow that ease of use that other possibilities allow someone to insert themselves between you and I and start to exploit that for their own pocket in between.

Mike Lake: Now I'll just ask the question, Jane, you might want to comment on this too, what would you say to someone that says, you know, I bought a DVD, movie DVD, and I want to watch it on my iPod touch, you know, whatever the case is, the kid's movie, and therefore you know need to break the lock on it to, in a sense, to be able to transfer it because it's not designed that way. What would you say to that person that says that it would unreasonable to make that illegal?

Jane Bisbee: I would say, personally, and I'm not sure this is a position of the Association, but personally I would think you should be able to watch it anyway you want to. Just the same as you should be able to take the book and, you know, if you want to read it in the bathtub, fine. If you want to watch the film on your touch, fine. If you want to show it, though, to a classroom full of kids or to your neighbourhood then I would have a problem because I've got no problem with you watching it the way you would like to, and being able to do it that way, do that with what your property is. But if you then start letting everybody else have it too, that's where I would have a problem with that.

You've essentially bought the copy, you've licensed it in a way, I guess, for you to use. So I would say if you want to sit and watch it on your computer, or on your touch, or on your television why should I worry about room in the house you're watching it on?

Mike Lake: It's a point from earlier, is it accurate to say that when I buy a DVD I have purchased the right to view that video content in whatever way that I would like to view it? Is that what you would say?

Jane Bisbee: Yes, in your own home, yes, I would agree with, well, on your own devices. I mean, if you're going to do it out in the back yard I guess it's not in your own home. But for personal use, yes, and if you read the wording on the box usually if, that's what it means I would think.

Mike Lake: Now Rick you were kind of half having your finger up there for a second, and then Linda and Shane.

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Rick Leech: The only point I would take your theoretical or hypothetical scenario further is, I watch it on the devices I have now or I have that digital image, would say not necessarily licensed, but that I have purchased. And the next best media format storage comes, XBZs instead of DVDs. Why should I, if I have the technology, not be able to use that image in that way?

Jane Bisbee: Well, I don't have a problem with that either, but I think we need to think in terms of other than breaking the lock. I think we need to think in broader terms, and I think that, not to put words in Shane's mouth, but you know when you buy a movie or any other story that you should have access to it for personal use in whatever format you want without breaking the lock.

So what does that mean? We don't know. We're trying to figure out, just as Shane has said, we have been inundated with information about all the things and the ways that technology is changing our world. I must read 50 pages a day on these issues, nobody has solved this problem yet. So we're not suggesting that we don't want to be cooperative, and that we don't want to make sure that people have access. I mean, without readers I'm out of business. So I really want to make sure the reader has what the reader wants, but I also want to make sure that property has the right kinds of protections on it so that the authors can get paid and so that I can continue to publish books. But that doesn't mean breaking the lock, it means something else, I don't have the answer, but it's coming. We just need some time.

Mike Lake: Alright, Shane, and then Myrna, and then Ernie.

Shane Kennedy: I think the solution is not only coming, I think aspects of it are already here. Right now, I, most of the electronic books I read are on my iPhone or iPod. And yet, I have them on my computer now. And if I lose those, I can contact them and have them downloaded again because my original purchase was registered. If I can verify who I am I can do that. There's ways of creating DRMs which are verified by DNLA out of Australia is working on this, there's quite a few new DRM systems which allow multiple copies, registration of the user and re downloads for new technologies as those emerge. It's already here, we're just catching up with how big of a percentage should we offer them.

We're creating together, we've created collectives of publishers across that Canada that are negotiating best terms with those groups to try and apply those for multiple usage so that we're not doing it, and many of us are searching through a dark landscape here and we don't the answers so we've researched together, some of us have become authorities on one particular area. We've gone to Frankfurt, or Australia and met those people and starting the negotiations, and new technologies are very, very quickly emerging to accommodate that. In fact, they already exists, it's just do we give them 10% or 6% for registration. And if we give it all to them, then we won't have that many in the end ourselves.

Some of the new creation of a digital asset management system and digital asset distribution systems that are made-in-Canada solutions are already appearing now. Rather than giving it away to someone in the States, we're creating those digital repositories right now. And we're trying to find solutions to put on top of those that would allow flexibility of use, and we would probably like it not to be at this moment held within a corporation somewhere else that might go under in a year or two. We'd like to do it together so those repositories of our assets, our digital assets are there forever and that we can keep upgrading them into high res, more complex forms as new technology emerges.

Myrna Kostash: What's your name? Chris, right. What Jane said about, we should be talking actually about the behaviour of people on the internet and not just about how to monetize it, and I want to get back just about the students. I quoted from that European Union commission about the attitude of the internet generation, fully a third of them are not prepared to pay for anything that they want to access.

In your view, is that fair to say that it's that broad a resistance? And secondly, if that is the case, if the resistance is, or even at a third it's enormous we already know that our newspapers for examples are in deep trouble because nobody is willing to pay to read their, and I'm one of them, I've got the New York Daily Times every day, right? And they're talking about asking people to spend $5 a month, right. Well is that even going to support journalists, investigative journalism and photography, and so on. So just something about how that your generation feels about paying for anything on the internet?

Chris Henderson: Well I'm not going to suppose to speak for, you know, and entire generation of students and their entertainment consumption habits. I think that that's, I mean, sort of stepping out of my role as, with my student association and our federal lobbying group. I mean, I think obviously there are, people don't pay for content as much as they used to.

What I'm most concerned about with this legislation in particular, like there are consumer rights groups that can talk to death about MP3s and movies and DVDs, and I don't really care about any of that. But from my perspective, the ability to collaborate and be innovative in a library, in a classroom, to just, the availability of, I mean for years, and years, and years, students have, if you are not a student that can learn, or if you're a student that needs to see the words to learn and you have a professor that doesn't put anything on the blackboard or anything on a PowerPoint, those lectures, you're not going to get nearly as much out of those lectures as a student who is an audio, or an audio learner.

We just, like, we're entering a very exciting time where teaching and learning can combine all these different learning styles and allow students to exploit the way that they can access the material the best, both in, you know, with their own personal preferences and with the technology that's available to them, you know, and with technology that they can afford. That said, and I just, I would, we would like to see copyright legislation that takes that into account and fully facilitates the ability for people to learn, to collaborate, and to perform research. And you know, and propel our next generation of discoveries and propel our next generation of content and propel our next generation of artists. Which is essentially what the students in our institutions are.

So, and I think that students understand that their institution is paying for, I mean, you can, any, I mean I haven't actually been a student for about 4 years, so I don't if this is true, but if you, but I don't know if this is still true, but if you go to any photocopier at the University of Alberta you'll see a little blurb about copyright on there. I think students are very aware that, well I think, my point is I think it's difficult to miss if you're interacting with the library. And I think that students, that students themselves are aware of copyright from the fact that they are going to become content producers, and I think that they are willing to respect it but they do need to know about it. And those, the user rights need to reasonable for them.

Mike Lake: Ernie and then Rick, and then Shane.

Ernie Ingles: I just wanted to follow up on a couple of the comments, and in fact a couple things I was going to say Chris has already said. But I did want to, I guess, comment on Myrna's comment with regard to those surveys or studies. And I've seen many of those, and the perception that they, the picture that they paint is I think a fairly accurate one of a generation, or generations, at a particular point in time. And everybody in this room was at the same stage at a particular point in time, and I would wager that everybody in this room did some pretty stupid things when they were at the same stage at that particular time. They may not have had to deal with copyright but it had to do with other things.

They will learn, they will come to understand in a large measure I don't think we should fear the adult of the future from what the student or the young person of today is doing. It's part of the people on the street issue, and we have to do a better job in, all of us that deal with copyright, whatever side of the issue that you might be on, to educate. And as soon as we understand what we're educating them about, which is in essence what the Act will tell us, then we can, I think, do our job. So I wanted to make that point.

The second thing I wanted to say though, is that we were having a very good and I think prompt (inaudible) good discussion about personal usage and personal issues. And on that end of the spectrum, on the other end of the spectrum which we haven't talked about nor should we is the flagrant and absolutely despicable infringements that have gone on. In the middle though, and I have to wear hat from the university, is the need for the fair dealing that deals with educational issues. And educational issues are a part of how we do the teaching to those students who then become adults. Capturing the teachable moments and using copyrighted information, whether it's print, whether it's digital, whether it's going (inaudible) format you may with do.

There needs to be in the middle an understanding, at least in the Act that there is educational purpose. I would include libraries in that, but there is those needs that are encompassed within the fair dealing. And I would go back to reinforcing that explicitly listing fair dealing opportunities are actually confusing the issue. If you do a "such as", you actually clarify the issue.

Myrna Kostash: Can you explain that, please, how that clarifies when it seems to be just the beginning of a list?

Ernie Ingles: If the list is constructed appropriately with a great deal of consideration and thought it transcends the time. The things that were appropriate 5 years ago when all of this started are different today. The "such as" is allow the Act to be current rather than being the stone tablet that was appropriate at a particular point time, but where the mechanical devices, remember those things that were in the original act? When we move on. So yes, the such as actually makes things more clear as it evolves. And the Act then doesn't have to be, we don't have to go through this circus year after year after year. That's what a such as allows you.

Mike Lake: I'm just going to make a suggestion here right now, the clock there says that it's just about 3 o'clock I think, it's a little bit of an hour hand there, but I think it's just about 3 o'clock. We can probably, that was sort of our scheduled end time, but I think we're probably good to go for another 10 minutes or so. What we'll do right now is we'll go to Rick and then Shane.

Rick Leech: Just two things, to follow up on Ernie's point the enumeration of what might be fair dealing and to have a "such as" type clause I think also has to be taken into account that what carefully crafted legislation will give you examples. And a court using illegal construction principles will look at that in order to interpret those, so, and our courts quite fairly I think have done a pretty good job in terms of how those have been interpreted. So I don't think it opens the Pandora's box that it appears many on the user rights side seems to think that that would do. So I agree with Ernie, it makes more flexibility in terms of what fair dealing is.

My second point is with respect to Linda, I thought we were making some pretty good progress on this whole issue of rights and what I can do with that digital content. Until Linda said, but not to break the digital lock, if I understood that correctly. And to have a legally uncircumventable digital lock on anything makes your right useless, it simply does. You can trust the marketplace, etcetera, but it, it just does not make any sense to me that I have the right to do this unless some publisher says I don't have the right to do that, or I have a contract that says I don't have the right to do that. The marketplace may take care of that, but I've payed my money, you know, I expect to have a product and I expect to be able to use that product within reasonable limits. And it also affects many other exceptions such as fair dealing preservation, you've locked something up for 50 years plus life with a digital lock, copyright no longer applies. So it is such an inflexible solution to simply say there is an uncircumventable digital lock that should be applied, and I think there may be some differences even within the user rights community about that point. Shane, I think you conceded that that's not necessarily what you're looking for in your situation.

Shane Kennedy: Well I didn't want to represent all publishers just to say my own side. I understand an evolution, the digital locks may be broken for very legitimate fair dealing purposes. I know that might be different that yours, my own understanding of it is because I also believe though that many people will be responding to the marketplace by creating micro-site licenses, special use licenses, we're already seeing that emerge very, very quickly.

But I won't speak to it entirely, I'd like to go to what I think is really a key issue that Chris brought up, and I think it's so poignant that you mention it now, of course, because with the Google settlement 14 days away from us now we have to opt in or opt out for us. The Department of Justice has to challenge it by September 18th, that is paramount to our concept of intellectual property right now. Because what it's done is given libraries, and I'm almost arguing the user rights side of this right now, but because it's the challenge that we face. It's giving libraries in the US an advantage, so there's going to be a tremendous pressure if not from my mentioned here, but many other people bringing it up and saying, oh, we no longer have the resource capacity they have in the States because they have access to this tremendous mountain of work. Let's say we have $32 million titles in the background, and Google has 7 million of them now available. This creates an advantage.

If, much of that is already on Project Gutenburg or it's already, the non copyright works that are clearly non copyright. You're digitizing them, they're moving forward, those are reemerging. Then there's the confusion about the orphaned works, which we don't know what status they're in, you probably know this well, we'll go to it. But then the end copyright works, it's my belief that if all those out of copyright works appear that somehow we'll find an evolution, or you'll find an evolution, of what happens with orphaned works or a way of compensating authors who emerge later on and find out that we found them, now we can give money to them. There's been a fund created, maybe that's one way of looking at it.

As much like the digital rights registry, but it's the in copyright works, the evolution of not just what we have in the past, but what were the economy we're building towards that I'm concerned about. When we use a word like "such as", because, and it's not about educational institutions that I'm concerned about, not, people at this table it isn't that. It's the flagrancy of Google, or others, to say here, we have the wiggle room now with a "such as" to do it, and then I'll see you in court. And we're not going to be able to take it to court, we won't have the money for those types of users that will be moving ahead so quickly, and we won't be able to fight them because they'll be too big to take us on, for us to take them on.

Mike Lake: Okay, I actually just, I have a kind of a question. I'm kind of thinking as we're talking through this, and I think Ernie kind of spurred it on in my mind. Thinking back to when I was a student in a university, when I was a student I didn't have a computer when I first started in university, and I remember going to the library and doing research for a paper and looking up, you know, looking for articles or looking for books and you'd go, you know, it was quite a process actually sometimes to get down there and do those things. Students today it seems to me have a tremendous opportunity, right? They can do the same thing I did but they can just go onto Google or some other search engine and find the information, the very same information that I had to go to the library to find, perhaps from the same institutions, same libraries who might have online collections or things like that, the same magazines obviously that they would have found the articles in.

It strikes me that we have to be very careful as we find that balance so that we don't stifle that opportunity, and Myrna, I'm looking at you because it was something that you kind of touched on a little bit earlier as a challenge. But how do we reconcile sort of the need for the protection of the authors, but at the same time not stifle that opportunity that exists for just the general public, consumers, students who can use these tools, you know, the very same tools that we would have used for no charge back 20 years ago or 25 years ago, but they're just so much more convenient now we can do it from our home office or our, you know, our living room.

I know that's a loaded question to ask with 4 minutes left, but Myna, maybe you want to. . .?

Myrna Kostash: I just want, Writer's Union feels that fair dealing as it is already legislated and applied is, well especially with the Supreme Court ruling, already represents that balance, right? And we fail to understand what infringement of access or users rights is implied by fair dealing as it legislated works out in Canada right now. I remain unconvinced.

Ernie Ingles: I'm not sure I want to come at the response to your question from a fair dealing perspective, but I'd just like to come at bat it from a very pragmatic, I guess, perspective without drawing on the Copyright Act. It goes back a little bit to some of things Shane said, you as a student today, you could google a Google book, but could you use a Google book? No, can you as a student get access to digital journals and whatnot? Yes you can, but if the library for whatever reasons, mostly probably financial, either cannot afford to license that subscription or to maintain a license to that subscription once it's already started, other, you would have access in your period to all of those print volumes on the shelf, they didn't go away but they do, it does go away when the license fails to be renewed.

So in point of fact, you are becoming a different kind of student, you have advantages absolutely but you have a lot of disadvantages in this particular environment today as well. And so it, we, we being those that try to run educational institutions every day try to balance what those students may need to do exactly what you did, and that is have access to the materials that you need. But at the same time, protecting that access because in a digital world it's very ephemeral in certain circumstances, so it's interesting.

I'll give you one kind of very, example of a someone doing work recently in newspapers, we have a lot of newspapers now online. When possibly, you look very young to me so I don't know, but possibly in my day I would have had to go through those newspapers page, by page, by page looking for something, microfilm or whatever. This particular student went through over 100 newspapers in less than 3 hours and found out, and in either 10 to 100 years of those newspapers, on a keyword search kind of thing looking for what would have taken you months to do. So there's advantages, but there's, they're fleeting as well if we don't protect them appropriately. And that's where I think, in the educational sector, we fall into both camps. We want these guys to thrive and prosper. In fact, the guy over here reports to me I really want her to thrive and prosper because the University of Alberta crest is very important to us.

But at the same time, we want this guy over here to have the right kinds of advantages that have always been there for students, but understanding that it is in a different way now.

Mike Lake: Is this guy over here is up next, so. . .

Unknown Male: I don't want to belabour Ernie's point too much, but I think something that's changed very drastically from maybe when you were a student to when I was a student is that just the, like Ernie said, the availability of new information and the efficiency at which you can go through it is, I think, and I've been sort in this industry for you know, long enough I think that I can make this assessment is that students I think are, more students are better today, like you're beginning to see students not just be students one day and then a professional another, but you're seeing them make a transition from being a student on their first day of their post secondary education to becoming at the end not just a student, but a scholar. Someone that's making actual contributions to the field that they're studying, and which is something that we traditionally don't really expect from students until they're late in their master's program or become PhD's and then fill out a body of works.

But students more, there are more students today doing high level research projects than I think there ever have been, and that's because of this availability of this technology. And like Ernie said, but there's a section of it that's sort of corded off for those students, and I mean these are discoveries that our universities are areas for discovery and if you can give students and researchers and professors and administrators access to them somehow I guarantee it will pay off in the future in spades.

Mike Lake: We'll move to Jane for a short last word before wrap up.

Jane Bisbee: How do we find a way to pay for this, to make the transaction to make the stuff available and still have payment? Back when the earth was still cooling the industry argued for a long time over something you will remember, payment for public use, remember that? It was a, it still exists but it's now called the public lending right and the two sides of the equation argued long and hard about how to put that compensation system in place and originally it was called PPU, Payment for Public Use, and now it's the public lending rate and maybe we need to have that discussion again with only a different delivery platform which is what we're talking about now. With the broader world of intellectual property.

Mike Lake: Well I will just quickly wrap up here, and just by thanking you all for taking the time out of your very busy schedules, I'm sure, to come out here on a beautiful day and sit inside and have this discussion certainly is a tremendously complex issue as we all know, and (laughter) and you know, it's, this is such an important part of the process, sitting around this table today and hearing maybe some different viewpoints, maybe hearing sometimes where we're on the same page, where everybody's on the same page or most of the room at least is on the same page on certain things. And just absolutely critical to the process, so I thank you so much for taking the time to come here today.

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