My name is André Cornellier. I'm an artist and a photographer. I'm also a director of UMA, La Maison de l'image et de la photographie, and I represent the Canadian Photographers Coalition, which represents 14,000 workers in the photography industry.
Thank you to the distinguished members of the committee for hearing us today.
You are asking about what is affecting our industry in the digital age and what you can do to help us. I will talk about one thing you could do to help us and one thing you should not do.
First, let's talk about how you can help us. Photographers from here do not have the same rights as other Canadian artists or other photographers in industrialized countries. Subsection 10(2) of Canada's Copyright Act provides that copyright belongs to the person who owns the negative. There is no negative in the digital age. Furthermore, why would copyright belong to the person who buys the film rather than the artist who created the work? Is copyright given to the person who supplies the guitar or the artist who composes the work?
The present government introduced an amendment, in the spring of 2008, in Bill C-61, which repealed subsections 10(2) and 13(2) and restored copyright to the photographer. We would like the present Conservative government to make the same amendment in the next bill, particularly since the Liberals also proposed that amendment in 2005 in Bill C-60.
Now let's talk about what the government should not do. The government should ensure that the Internet is accessible to everyone everywhere. It should ensure that the information highway is accessible everywhere at an affordable cost. That will assist in the development of commerce and Canadian culture. At the same time, it must resist the idea of making content free of charge. When the government builds roads and highways for goods and services to be accessible everywhere, what is transported on them is not free of charge. Making something available does not mean making it free of charge. It means that what is not available in a region is now available there and that people can now buy it.
What is the interest in building a refrigerator if it becomes free of charge because you transport it on a highway? Does selling shoes rather than giving them away undermine the shoe business? Does that make it so no other companies create new shoes?
The same is true for the Internet. Creating the information highway does not mean that what is transported on it must be free of charge. The right to own and enjoy one's inventions and creations is a fundamental right for a fair business. This actually encourages creation. Is the claim being made that you encourage creation by making everything free of charge? Where then is the encouragement?
When we advocate compliance with copyright, we're told that we are undermining creation, that we understand nothing, that we should deal with the new ideas and new needs of the digital revolution. A seminar was held in Toronto on April 29 and 30, 2008. It was attended by all segments of Canadian culture, representing all opinions on copyright. More than 140,000 creators in all fields were represented there: music, visual arts, performing arts, writing, film and video. There were also promoters of a free Internet, those who are opposed to copyright. There were the promoters of the Creative Commons. There was Mr. Geist, there were “appropriationist” artists and a number of representatives of the next generation, the young generations. All ideas and all ages were represented there.
One young artist, in his twenties, made a presentation on one of his creations. It was a three-minute video. He had taken hundreds of images off the Internet and had assembled them in layers. His creations consisted of numerous recombined images. The video images were collages. Hundreds of collages one after the other composed a symphony of highly coloured images. He explained that, if he had had to request copyright permission for each of those images, it would have taken him months and cost tens of thousands of dollars. He therefore asked that copyright be abolished on the Internet and that an exemption be introduced so that he exempt from copyright since it was holding back his creativity.
We told him about a hypothetical case. If a company, such as Ubisoft, for example, created a new electronic game and, liking his pictures, decided to take them off the Internet and include them in their software, to use them to package a product or whatever else, that shouldn't be a problem for him. He answered without hesitation that he would sue them.
On January 30 last, I was in the offices of a young design firm in Montreal. During a conversation, the two designers, knowing that I worked for the recognition of copyright, told me that I didn't understand the needs of their generation. One of them told me he was making music and that they preferred to distribute their music on the Internet so that people could download it free of charge so that they could make themselves known. As a result of that, the old models that I supported were no longer valid. There should be no more copyright.
I asked him if there would be a problem if a group in Canada or the United States liked their music and wanted to record it and distribute it on a CD and over the Internet. He answered without hesitation that he would sue them.
There are hundreds of examples of this kind. They all say they don't want copyright so as not to inhibit their creativity or the distribution of their creations, but they all want to sue those who appropriate their works. How could they sue if there was no act protecting them?
This doesn't show that they don't want copyright; it shows only one thing: ignorance of copyright. When you carefully listen and try to understand their thinking, you understand that they want to be able to decide when to share their creations free of charge and when to profit from them. The right to decide where, when and how you want to share your creations is called copyright.
Current copyright effectively achieves its mission and protects creators old and new, those of yesterday and those of tomorrow. It enables them to give away their works free of charge or to profit from them and to create new original works. Do not open the door to all these exemptions that are asked of you. The exemptions you create today to allegedly facilitate creation will in future turn against those who requested them and they will not be able to protect their own works. Giving permission to plagiarize encourages plagiarists, not talent. Real artists have never been afraid of any constraints. Respect for rights encourages creation. If you give in today to requess for exemptions, in 20 years, they'll be the first ones to criticize you, and rightly so, for not protecting their creations and their property.
Thank you.