Media Report

Canada's copyright laws are about to change. The Harper Government has introduced a copyright reform bill into the Canadian lower house and it's got the online community stirred up and angry.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

CANADIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

Antony Funnell: Now Canada has a reputation, perhaps unfairly, for being a bit staid and well, a little earnest. But many young Canadians have been hot under the collar of late over the issue of copyright. Yes, copyright, not normally an issue that excites the passions, but it has in the very, very, very far north.

Late last week, the government in Canada introduced a Bill into its Lower House to update its Copyright Act. And they've launched their reforms under the slogan, 'Made in Canada Copyright Reform'.

Sounds innocuous enough, even patriotic, but as I says, it's infuriated a large number of Canadians and it's led to accusations that the government in Ottawa has caved in to American corporate pressure.

CANADIAN PARLIAMENT/CLAPPING

Opposition MP: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well the Minister of Industry clearly doesn't understand the issue of copyright because he's refused to meet with key Canadian stakeholders. He's shut the door to universities and educators, he's ignored the advice of senior government bureaucrats and he's completely shut the door to consumer groups, artists, and software innovators. Now meanwhile, his government's been rolling out the red carpet for corporate lobbyists and the US Ambassador. So Canadians have a right to know why they are going to be stuck with this on-balance, one-sided piece of Made in the USA Copyright legislation.

Speaker: The Minister of Industry.

Minister of Industry: Well Mr Speaker I note impatience in my honourable friend's voice here in the House and his question, and the honourable member knows full well that the Copyright Bill has been under discussion in this country for a number of years ...

Antony Funnell: OK, you get the idea. Now the new Bill is meant to bring Canada's copyright rules into line with the realities of the modern media world.

But according to Professor Michael Geist, who holds the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, the new legislation could do more harm than good.

Michael Geist: The core of the legislation includes what's known as Anti-circumvention legislation, legal protection for the digital locks that are sometimes found on copy-protected CDs, on DVDs, even on electronic books. And it makes any act to circumvent those locks, protects the digital lock, as it were, an active infringement. There are a few exceptions, but the exceptions are largely illusory because it's hard to actually use them. And so for many Canadians, even on issues such as region-coating on a DVD, or trying to take music from a copy-controlled CD and put it on to their iPod, suddenly those acts become acts of infringement.

Antony Funnell: So it will make, if you like Mum and Dad Canadians it will make them criminals, in a way?

Michael Geist: That's the concern that many people are expressing, that it really does target what I think many people today would see as relatively mundane, everyday activities, the notion that if you want to watch a movie that you purchased on a DVD and put it on to your video iPod, or you want to listen to music wherever you want to happen to listen to that music, or even you want to record a television show with your PBR, that if it contains a broadcast flag not to copy, you can't copy it. It's all of those sorts of things that people do engage in, I think pretty much on a daily basis now. And yet based on the way the law is drafted, all of these things would become infringements.

Antony Funnell: And now you've also written that you think it will not just affect average Canadians, but it will dampen the potential of the internet economy. Just explain that for us.

Michael Geist: Well I think that it's not just the individuals who are deeply affected, but it's many businesses as well. It goes after businesses, certainly let's say in the security space, software developers, many of them, who depend upon greater openness to be able to really succeed in that marketplace, and I think it sends a really wrong message to the marketplace as well, because in a sense, what the Canadian government is doing is backing the wrong horse. It's backing locking-down content and in fact encouraging the marketplace to move in that direction, knowing that it'll have this extra layer of legal protection. And yet in doing so, it's running counter to the way the market has tended to move more recently, which is towards greater openness and greater flexibility, just as consumers are looking for.

Antony Funnell: Now you're not happy with this legislation, but do you agree in principle, that there was a need for reform of the Copyright laws in Canada?

Michael Geist: I certainly think there's room to update the laws; and even within the context of updating the laws to include some legal protection for these digital locks, there was great potential to at least move forward, if we're going to move forward with some greater flexibility. We've seen New Zealand do it for example, and there was even an earlier Canadian proposal to try to do the same. But on the one hand we'd seek to provide that legal protection but at the same time, preserve some of the existing fair dealing and permitted uses.

Antony Funnell: Now it's one thing of course to establish laws, but of course enforcement is another thing altogether isn't it? I mean does the Canadian government have the ability or even the willingness to follow through on enforcement on this?

Antony Funnell: That's a great point, and many people have noted that this feels like an unforceable law. For example, they've legalised within the law, the act of time shifting, recording a television show but largely for analogue purposes with a VHS. But one of the limitations is that you can only keep it for a reasonable period of time, so if you start recording a television show and you hang on to it for a long period of time, that would still be an act of infringement. It seems that provisions of that nature are really unenforceable, who's actually going to go ahead and follow that? But yet in an education context, where schools both from kindergarten to grade 12 as well as at the university level, they follow whatever copyright guidelines are and they make it very clear to both teachers, professors and students, that they're required to meet the conditions of the law. So if teachers are told they can't do certain things in the classroom, or students are told as part of the assignments that they do that there are limits on the kind of things they can do, they'll follow that, and in some ways while I don't expect the Canadian government to delve deep into our homes, I do think that where the impact may be felt most is within our school system.

Antony Funnell: Now there has been quite a considerable and aggressive online campaign waged against these copyright changes. The campaign's FaceBook group as I understand it, has around 60,000 members already. Is the Harper government though, it's a very conservative government from what I understand, is that government likely to be swayed by this type of pressure and will an online campaign, as good as it may be, as effective as it may be, will it really matter to your ordinary Canadian voter?

Michael Geist: Well I think that your ordinary Canadian voter is online. If you look at Canada, there are 7-million Canadians who have FaceBook accounts in a country of 32-million. We've already seen that it can have an impact; conservatives are still a minority government; votes still matter. And it seems to me that as tens of thousands of Canadians begin to express their concern in some ways by joining a FaceBook group, but even more by writing to their local Member of Parliament to speaking within their community, to really raising greater awareness and expressing concern to elected officials, if you're in the business of trying to be re-elected, you've got to pay attention.

Antony Funnell: Now the Harper government in Ottawa says this is a 'Made in Canada' piece of legislation. But those who've been mounting the campaign against it, including yourself, say that it reeks of American imperialism. But isn't the case though that several Canadian industry groups have been calling for copyright reform and support these changes?

Michael Geist: Certainly there is some support from some of those groups; many of them are groups that largely are the Canadian Branch Plan groups for the US interests. But yes, you're right there are some groups that support. I think one of the things that's been interesting in Canada is that in just about every one of the key sectors in this area, you'll find that there are people on both sides, so in the music space you've got certain of the record labels who are supportive, but you've also got a major group, the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, which represents some of Canada's best-known musicians, who oppose. Some of the Hollywood interests are in favour of this, the documentary film makers in Canada are against it. Some education groups are happy with certain of the provisions, others are not. So I think you see a real split. But at its heart, it seems to me that much of the decision to move on this issue, an issue that isn't going to win a minimum, isn't going to win the conservative party any votes, but it seems to be could lose them some, was that the motivators here was some of that US pressure. Since it came to power 2-1/2 years ago the Harper government has made clear that a supportive and closer relationship with the United States was a key political priority.

Antony Funnell: Professor Michael Geist from the University of Ottawa.

Thanks to the production team, Andrew Davies and Jim Ussher.

Guests

Professor Michael Geist
University of Ottawa`

Presenter

Antony Funnell

Producer

Andrew Davies

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