Mr. Speaker, Bill C-57 to implement the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization includes approximately 20 clauses dealing with copyright. Most of these clauses are designed to ensure that the
Canadian Copyright Act is in conformity with the Trade Related Aspects of International Property Right, the document that sets the WTO copyright rules.
On the whole, as necessary as they may be, these are nonetheless minor changes. They do however put into perspective the resistance to change and indifference of the Canadian government in terms of intellectual property, as evidenced by Clause 58, lines 5 to 8, on page 25 of Bill C-57. This clause establishes a new right, namely that of authorizing without consent the fixation and reproduction of the performer's performance. The wording of this provision is prima facie proof of how deeply anachronistic and antiquated the Canadian Copyright Act.
In poetic terms, one could say that in the beginning, there were the natural sounds of the elements: the crash of the sea, the whistling wind, the murmuring breeze, the rumble of falling rocks and the crackling of the fire. Then came the natural sounds of human and animal communication: bird songs, monkey grunts, a child's cry, the murmur of love, the African tam-tam. Less than a century ago, all sounds had to be heard live.
Through an evolutionary and creative process, the air is now filled with sounds recorded on records, tapes, CDs, videos, CD-ROMs. Unfortunately, it would seem that the Canadian Copyright Act remains frozen in time, around 1878 to be more precise, the year that Thomas Edison invented perforated roll recording.
Clause 58 of Bill C-57 is a clear, not to say glaring, example. It reads: "to fix the performer's performance, or any substantial part thereof, by means of a record, perforated roll or other contrivance by means of which sounds may be mechanically reproduced-"
When he invented the phonograph, Thomas Edison thought that sounds could be fixed permanently to be reproduced.