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Results: 1 - 15 of 243
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thanks to all the witnesses.
I think Mr. Larivière has summed it up. Nobody here is, I hope, opposed to creators or authors. It's, as Ms. Gagnon said, almost a philosophical question. It's about how society values creators. It's really coming down to one thing: it's money. That's what the argument seems to be about. It's not about access; it's about how much money.
You or some of your colleagues would propose that a certain amount of this should be free. As I said yesterday, I'm curious: do you approach the electrical company with the same sense? Do you approach the guy who repairs your roof with the same sense?
Mr. Hill, you made mention of $200 million—I think that was the number I wrote down—spent attaining the things the copyright protected. The number doesn't mean much to us unless you present to us how much you actually spend. I'd be curious as to how much you spend on building repair. I'd be curious about how much you spend on buying computers, how much you spend on purchasing software from Microsoft. You have to put it in context for us to give us some sort of appreciation of what your $200 million means in respect to—what is it, a $3-billion budget, a $5-billion budget? We don't know. This doesn't give us a sense of how much you value....
My concern for the authors is simply that we keep comparing it with the paper industry of yesterday. I don't know that we're recognizing what it's going to be five years from now.
You are providing what your customers are asking for, Mr. Morrison. Based on your knowledge and the history of the printing business, where is it going to be five years from now? I suspect, as I said yesterday, the creators should be very nervous, because I suspect there will be far fewer paper and far more digital copies being provided. If we do not get the proper protections in place, then you and hundreds like you, and even more importantly the creators, are going to be in deep trouble.
I'm interested in what your opinions are. Where do you see this going five years from now, from a digitized perspective? I throw that first question out to you.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Hill, could you respond as well?
You also made reference to one of the recent court decisions. People have been selectively grabbing things out of it over the course of the last couple of weeks. Let's keep in mind what the true thrust of the decision was. The justice stated that it was really as a result of a lack of copyright protection that Parliament had granted. That was the thrust. They said Parliament didn't get it right, and so based on what is in place right now, this has to be the court's decision.
If Parliament had got it right, the decision would have been very different. The courts interpret and uphold the law. We're the ones who make it.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Hill, let's pretend we're all idealists for a moment, and that you had the appropriate amount of resources necessary; that whichever level of government provides the appropriate level of funding, money wasn't an issue. Would we be having this debate or discussion?
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Hill, I'm still not convinced you are looking toward the future as opposed to looking toward the past. I'm not naive enough to think we are going to digitize all the writings of the last ten centuries. What I'm concerned about is the next ten. I suspect their product is going to be massively, disproportionately digitized as opposed to bound paper copies.
My concern is making sure we have the system right, making sure that as we move into this digitized era more and more aggressively, creators are being remunerated. I'm not convinced you're able to do that with these kinds of exceptions in the digitized era.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'm not referring to fictional writers myself. I'm using “creator” in a fairly broad sense. Whether somebody is writing a position on a particular legal case, or somebody is writing on a particular issue in medicine, I still consider them to be creators, in a sense.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
There are a few points that I really want to make sure I clarify. We're sort of getting into an us-and-them kind of thing.
For those representing the libraries, I want to be very clear on this. We are incredibly grateful for the job that you do. You're absolutely critical to a knowledge-based society. You delivery an incredible service and we're grateful for that. But I believe Mr. Morrison has it right. It's not about you, it is about the creator. It is about establishing a set of principles, a direction about how we foster creativity in this country and how we continue to support and encourage that kind of thing.
Mr. Harvard made mention, of course, that because of your status as a non-profit or a not-for-profit, there should be a different set of rules. We're struggling greatly with that.
Madam Chair, you'll remember, likely, about a year and a half ago when somebody sat down at the table and one of the observers asked the witness, “What are you doing here?” The person said “Oh, I'm a writer”. They were just having sort of a relaxed conversation, and the observer said to the writer, “What do you do for a living?” It was just generally accepted, of course, that this person couldn't possibly support themselves financially because they identified themselves as a writer. There's some humour in it, but I think it's unfortunate that we've moved in that direction.
Digital access, in my opinion, is going to be absolutely fundamental to a competitive economy--absolutely fundamental. I said it yesterday; I think e-learning is going to revolutionize education as we know it, is going to revolutionize learning as we know it.
My concern is that we don't know how this digitized era is going to unfold. As Mr. Lincoln mentioned, you're asking about exceptions in something that nobody fully comprehends at this point in time.
Ms. Crean made a statement about why are we so opposed, or why was there no position against the licensing aspect of it.
I'm very, very nervous. I'm very excited about this digitized era that we're heading into and the ability for people to access vast amounts of knowledge where they didn't have that five years ago, but I'm concerned about the creators. If they're not being rewarded today and yesterday, by God, what's going to happen to them tomorrow if we don't have some pretty clear and transparent rules in place to enable them to derive their living?
So I'm going back to asking, where are we going five years from now, and do you not agree that we had better have some very clear enabling legislation, if I can use Mr. Harvard's terms, to make sure that the environment is good for creators?
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I should have bought stock in Tylenol before we started these sessions.
I don't think we can over-emphasize the importance of this e-learning digital era. I really believe the advent of e-learning will have impacts on this century comparable to what the industrial revolution had on the last one.
I am convinced that with the doubling of knowledge every five years now, there is only one way that will be useful. There is only one way that the masses will have access to that, and that is through a digitized format. So I say, creators beware.
We seem to be looking at things in the rear-view mirror and comparing it to how this is working out in the paper industry. We have to start looking 10 years down the road, and I think Mr. Weber has clearly done that. He's recognizing that as creators are producing, they're not going to be producing 50,000 or 100,000 bound copies of their reports; they're going to be producing a digitized version or a digitized copy. And if we don't get this right, I think it will have an absolutely tremendously negative impact on creators.
Mr. Wills, regarding your reference to the recent court decision, I'm disappointed in that particular justice, but I think I have to hold our government to account as a result of that decision, to a large extent. I don't think Parliament, or Canadians in general, believe the courts should be determining what level of support the country should be providing its creators. I think they look to Parliament to do that, and I would suggest that is exactly what we are doing right now. So I'm hoping we don't use justices' opinions to determine whether or not we should be supporting our cultural sector.
If I understand your argument properly, you should not be paying for things like computers, for software, for electricity, or for anything else, for that matter, because I can only assume that you value the content that you're providing by way of your curriculum every bit as much as you do the Microsoft software you're buying, or the computer you're buying, or the electricity you're purchasing that allows you to deliver that.
In fact, if I were to keep going down that road, I would suggest that maybe you shouldn't be charging for your courses, or you should only be charging a portion for your courses.
I'm very, very nervous about not getting this right, making sure we have a good structure in place to make sure we can deliver the money in a digitized era five years from now, to make sure that we have the appropriate levels of support for creators, because you, as educators, are going to have a very difficult job in providing course material if nobody is producing it.
So I'm interested in where you see things going five years from now, where you see things going 10 years from now, as we recognize that this doubling of human knowledge.... It's difficult for me to even comprehend this. The last 25,000 years is now being repeated by human knowledge every five years, and it will likely accelerate beyond that. Where do you see this going 5, 10, or 15 years down the road if we do not have collective licensing to support our creators?
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
With regard to Mr. Wills' comments, I'm not trying to create misimpressions, Mr. Wills, and if I did, I apologize. What I'm doing is garnering impressions and sharing them with you, and that is my impression.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Weber, do you, as a person on each end of the pole, so to speak, consider exceptions in the digital world a reasonable proposition?
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much to all the witnesses. You've done a wonderful job presenting your various positions.
There are some common themes here, and one of them is that you're all there to support a better, more vibrant, educated society. It's just trying to jig it right.
I do see some contradictions, quite frankly, Mr. Doucet, in your arguments. I don't think anybody here wants to create unfair barriers for students to secure higher education, but I think the balance has to be reasonable. If my one of my kids becomes a writer, I hope he will be remunerated for his skill. Because certain people in the education system feel they might be able to use that information to offer education, which of course they're paid for, it seems to be a contradiction. You're charging for education, and yet you're not necessarily prepared to pay for the input to offer that education to the end user. I see a bit of a contradiction in that regard.
You've mentioned that you're helping produce the creators of tomorrow. I see a contradiction there as well, because in helping to mould the creators of tomorrow, we would hope you are providing an environment where they can eat. I think that's a critical element to it.
You had some wonderful quotes. The only one I took exception to maybe was that your amendment would not hurt creators or writers. It reminded me of when my dentist talks to me. I guess the pain is all in the eye of the beholder, or the user in this particular case.
I'm wondering if you can clarify for me--I'd like this first question to go to Ms. Levy and Mr. Doucet--first how you see a collective licensing system charging for things you've identified, things like our bios, content that was intended for free public use. I'd be interested in both your answers, and I have a supplementary as well, if I have time.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
I know what you want to do. I'm asking how collective licensing creates charges on things that were fully intended as no-charge public content. I understand what you're asking for, but I'm asking you to explain to me how you're going to pay for those things that were intended to be free under a collective licensing system.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
At the end of the day, do you have confidence that the market would sort itself out, that five years from now there is not going to be some massively disproportionate amount of billing being shifted over to the educators as compared with other users?
For the committee's purposes, I phoned a superintendent in my riding last spring on this particular issue to try to get a sense, because it clearly, from my perspective, was coming down to that almighty dollar. That was the crux of the argument. I asked about the impact on the schools, and he very clearly put it into terms I could understand. Whether it was $1, $2, or $2.50, I didn't know what that was going to be; I assumed it would be a negotiation, and asked how that would affect his school. He put it into perspective for me, suggesting that a school of 400 students would spend a couple of thousand dollars on snow removal, that a school of 400 students might spend several thousand dollars on janitorial services, that a school of 400 people might spend several thousand dollars on food and drink. He was giving me a comparison of $5 and $15 per student for those kinds of things, as opposed to $1 or $2 for things of a creative nature, things that are truly going to enlighten the student. I guess it's about value on one thing more than the other from the educator's perspective.
I'd be interested in knowing if you think this thing will balance at the end of the day. I'm interested in both your opinions, quite frankly.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
That's certainly the history for creators. I don't know a whole bunch of wealthy ones.
View Paul Bonwick Profile
Lib. (ON)
Wouldn't you have to pay for that, if you wanted to go visit your own website?
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