C-11 copyright committee wraps up, passes 8 government amendments

OTTAWA—The House legislative committee on copyright reform Bill C-11 finished its work on the bill Tuesday, passing modest technical changes and reporting it back to the House of Commons. The governing Conservatives, whose members control the committee votes, rejected all amendments from the opposition parties—including proposals to loosen the bill's legal protection for the so-called “digital locks” on software and devices—and passed their own technical changes to the bill. The committee finished with the bill quickly after two clause-by-clause meetings, having started the amendment stage Monday. Although the parties of the House disagreed on the bill's provisions, they finished the meeting by commending the work of the committee chairs and support staff in their efforts to move ahead with an omnibus copyright reform bill that the Conservative government, and the Liberal government before it, have sought to pass for several years. The bill implements the Internet treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which Canada signed in 1997. "Clearly, we have differing points of view on some of the issues as it relates to copyright, but what I liked about this process was that the parties were able to come together and debate real issues in a respectful way, and obviously we've come to a conclusion on this bill that we're happy with,” Tory MP Mike Lake, the parliamentary secretary to the industry minister, told The Wire Report following the meeting. NDP MP and digital affairs critic Charlie Angus said his party brought forward “reasonable amendments.” He said he is disappointed the government did not agree to change C-11’s provision for the legal protection of digital locks and to provide an exception for blind people or those with perceptual disabilities. Angus said he also disagreed with the bill's exception for radio stations, which will mean they are no longer required to compensate collective societies for mechanical reproduction rights paid for transferring and reformatting music files. The committee approved the provision without amendment Monday. "We've been saying since 2004, when I took over as the digital affairs critic, we want a copyright bill,” Angus said. “The problem is that this bill is still a flawed bill because it's directly attacking the mechanical rights and royalties of creators that will cause major impact to them. It's also leaving average Canadians still open to possible litigation for engaging in legal acts.” The government passed eight amendments to the bill during the two meetings, including a change Tuesday to the bill's clause 46 so that statutory damages can be applied against so-called copyright infringement “enablers” like Bittorrent trackers, illegal streaming sites, or other online sources. "Under Bill C-11, copyright owners would be able to seek injunctions, profits, and/or actual damages against enablers when the option of seeking statutory damages is not available to them. The proposed amendment would make statutory damages available against those who enable copyright infringement,” Drew Olsen, director of policy and legislation at the Department of Heritage, told to the committee. The government amendment, like six of the others, was passed with support from the Conservative members and the opposition voting against it. The NDP and Liberals proposed amendments to clause 47 of the bill, the provision for strict legal protection for digital locks. The opposition parties said the bill should concede to the way the public uses copyrighted material and help limit unnecessary acts of infringement. "Under this bill, the digital locks provision allows corporate interests to override any of the rights that are guaranteed to an ordinary citizen,” NDP MP and digital affairs critic Charlie Angus said at the committee. "The reasonable question is why don't we link the prohibition of breaking digital locks to actual acts of infringement, rather than presuming the criminality of every Canadian who engages in the digital realm?" Angus said. The opposition parties each proposed that the provision be amended so that it is only an infringement of copyright to break a digital lock if it is done “for any infringing purpose.” The opposition amendment, like all others Monday and Tuesday, was defeated with no support from the government. Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, a committee member and the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, said the provision as passed encourages private sector expansion in Canada. “These amendments that are being sought by the opposition on this specific clause would render many of the other measures in this bill meaningless. That's why we can't support them,” Del Mastro said. Industry insiders told The Wire Report last week that a possible amendment for the Conservatives was to provide an exception for broadcast distributors' personal video recorder (PVR) services, which host content on their networks. Distributors such as Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. had proposed a network PVR exception, but the Conservative government did not put forward such an amendment. Liberal MP and committee member Geoff Regan proposed a network PVR exception to the bill's clause 35, which did not come to a vote because another Conservative amendment overrode it. Del Mastro said during debate Monday that, based on his understanding from talks with government officials, there is nothing in the law to prevent broadcasters and broadcast distributors from establishing business-to-business agreements that clear the use of network PVRs and the storage of copyrighted content on TV distributors' networks. Some insiders and experts had expected amendments to the bill's exception for the creation of user-generated content. That provision in the bill remained unchanged. The government also passed amendments to clause 35 of the bill, which provides “safe harbour” exceptions for ISPs to ensure they are not held liable for infringing material transmitted, cached, or hosted on their networks. Robert DuPelle, a senior policy analyst with Industry Canada, said one of the amendments to the clause ensures ISPs' caching responsibilities are “in line with industry standards” and another relates to the ISPs' “obligation to not interfere with the collection of user data." In another small amendment, the Tories changed the bill's provision for “injunctive relief” against search engines. The amendment includes a limitation that says courts, when granting injunctions, must consider the potential harm to the copyright owner, any burden imposed on a search provider, whether the injunction is technically feasible, and other factors. DuPelle said at the committee that the amendment changes the conditions that search engines need to meet when they cache or store material online. In a related technical amendment, the government changed the amount of time that Internet service providers (ISPs) have to respond to notices of potential copyright infringing material stored on their networks. When copyright owners notify ISPs about allegedly infringing material on their networks, the providers must inform the customer who posted the material “as soon as feasible,” according to the amendment. That language was changed from “without delay.” “The objective is to ensure that ISPs have a suitable amount of time in order to comply with the obligation, particularly if there are unforeseen circumstances,” DuPelle said. The committee passed other technical amendments Monday, including a minor amendment to the bill's “enabler provision.” news@thewirereport.ca

C-11 copyright committee wraps up, passes 8 government amendments

Broadcast | March 13, 2012

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