“That would be very bad news…”, let go, in an interview with The Sunthe general director of Copibec, Christian Laforce, about the fact that Justin Trudeau’s liberal government could fall at any time.
Mr. Laforce made this statement at the launch of the World Congress of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO), which brings together 150 members of copyright organizations from 80 countries in Quebec until Thursday.
Copibec would like to see the federal government table its draft overhaul of the Copyright Act and see it adopted before the federal election is called. “This is something that the literary community has been asking for since 2012 and we believe that it would be a great opportunity to do it this year, on the occasion of the centenary of the Copyright Act in Canada,” says Mr. Laforce.
End of exceptions
One of Copibec’s wishes in a possible overhaul is the elimination of any exception to the law, such as the one that has existed since 2012 for the education sector, and that no other exception be introduced, particularly for businesses. who develop artificial intelligence.
According to a brief from the National Book Publishers Association, Canadian publishers and authors have suffered losses of more than $200 million since the exception was granted to the education sector in 2012.
And south of the border, media and publishers have already denounced the unauthorized use of books and content protected by copyright by large generative artificial intelligence platforms which used them to develop their products .
“The Canadian government seemed inclined to reform the law, but during the last budget, we were told that there were too many files to have the copyright law adopted,” indicates Christian Laforce.
Worst case scenario
In this context, a fall of the Trudeau government and the hasty calling of federal elections would be the worst scenario, according to the general manager of Copibec. “We still believe that the reform can be included in the budget statement planned for November. In fact, we’re betting everything on that,” he explains.
The general manager of Copibec is crossing his fingers that early elections do not put an end to the process and postpone it until much later, after the election and the inauguration of a new government.
Among the delegates taking part in the IFRRO congress, we find several from the European Union (EU), a part of the world that is cited as an example in Canada for its rules surrounding copyright.
“The regulations that the EU passed to protect the use of works are those that we would like the Canadian government to take inspiration from. We would like Bill C-27 [Loi édictant la Loi sur la protection de la vie privée des consommateurs, la Loi sur le Tribunal de la protection des renseignements personnels et des données et la Loi sur l’intelligence artificielle et les données et apportant des modifications corrélatives et connexes à d’autres lois] is inspired by what is done in Europe, where there are standards on transparency and where companies developing artificial intelligence must comply with Copyright Law when they create and program their products. , he finishes.
