CEO says Copyright Board to ‘run tighter ship’

OTTAWA — The Copyright Board will work to address long-standing criticism over how long it takes to issue decisions, including by implementing new regulations, CEO Nathalie Théberge told members of the House industry committee. Théberge was asked by Conservative MP Dan Albas why board decisions can take as long as seven years. “How is it even possible to get a decision on a tariff to take that long?” Albas asked. Théberge said that seven-year figure assumes that there are no pauses in an ongoing process, though “in reality a process can be stop and go.” “There are moments during the process where parties come to the board and say, you know what, hold off because we’re negotiating.” That adds time to how long it takes to issue a decision, she said. “That being said, we’re fully conscious that there’s pressure for the board to render decisions results more quickly,” she said. She noted the reforms included in budget implementation bill C-86 include specific time frames for rendering decisions, and said the bill would go a long way to making the board more efficient. Théberge didn’t repeat criticism from Copyright Board chair Robert Blair, who told senators he had concerns about provisions in the bill that allow the governor-in-council to govern each step in the decision-making process. Théberge said in addition to that legislation, the government “will probably be introducing some regulation, and we will be introducing regulations,” she said, such as “using case management to run a tighter ship.” The meeting, held as part of the committee’s review of the Copyright Act, also touched on the issue of how copyright should apply to artificial intelligence. Myra Tawfik, a law professor at the University of Windsor, who presented a brief on behalf of a number of intellectual property law academics, said copyright shouldn’t be automatically granted to works created solely by AI. “If a human being can exercise sufficient skill and judgement in the way they in which they use software or other technologies to produce an original work, then the established copyright principles would apply,” she said. “There is no policy consistent with history, theory or practice that would justify expanding copyright to works entirely created by artificial intelligence.”

CEO says Copyright Board to ‘run tighter ship’

Brief | December 6, 2018

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CEO says Copyright Board to ‘run tighter ship’

Brief | December 6, 2018

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