Hill Times Letter: In search of good copyright legislation

Letter to the Hill Times Editor published December 14, 2009

I would like to thank The Hill Times for keeping the copyright issue current, including publishing the opinion piece by musician Liam Titcomb, “Time to bring the Copyright Act into digital age,” (The Hill Times, Dec. 7, p. 51).

This article is similar to many others I have read where some agreed-upon facts are mixed with controversial claims to lead to a controversial conclusion.

We all agree that copyright should be modernized to take the digital age into consideration. There is wide disagreement on what this means. Historically the activities which copyright regulated were expensive commercial activities, and copyright did not regulate the private activities of citizens. Modernizing the copyright act must include clarification and simplification such that these private activities do not require any permission or payment.

Truly private copying, including when we make copies between devices we own of content which we legally acquired, should not be regulated by copyright.

We do not have a law that is fair and makes sense when it comes to the current private copying levy. It is fair when copyright requires permission in order to distribute content electronically or physically, and that audiences get that permission or make payment for anything they acquire. It is fair when a group of copyright holders come together in the form of a collective society, including when governments impose a compulsory licensing system, to simplify payment in otherwise excessively complex situations (commercial radio playing music, hopefully expanded to include online distribution such as P2P file sharing).

When the levy is divorced from an otherwise infringing activity, it is no longer fair. The private copying regime has been controversial since it was created in 1997 during the last major overhaul of copyright (minor changes since). I am an example of someone who has paid the levy on several hundred blank CDs, where the number of songs that should have qualified for a levy (i.e.: not already received permission and payment) would have fit onto a couple of CDs. Expanding this system to devices would be less fair given these devices are further divorced from activities that should require permission or payment.

Divorced from otherwise infringing activities it looks far more like a tax, and given the lack of citizen input at the copyright board (process, expenses, etc.) it is taxation without representation.

I believe composers and performers should receive more money than they do today, I just strongly disagree that expanding copyright further into the private activities of Canadians is a legitimate tool to do this. We are talking about a legitimate government program, not a legitimate form of copyright. We should be applying concepts from the Public Lending Right which is a Heritage Canada program to fund authors (not intermediary publishers) based on borrowing popularity in public libraries. A similar funding program for composers and performers (not publishers or labels) based on their popularity online (social media sites, P2P, etc.—not radio or Soundscan statistics) would be equally fair and make sense.

Russell McOrmond
Ottawa, Ont.
(The author is an internet consultant).