Copyright reform not the best way forward for journalism remuneration: S-225 witnesses

Experts in the journalism industry are not in agreement on an upcoming bill aimed at providing more financial support for news publishers vis-a-vis web giants through Copyright Act reforms. The Senate committee on Transport and Communication met Wednesday to continue its study on the private members bill S-225 -- An Act to amend the Copyright Act (remuneration for journalistic works) -- introduced in the Senate in February by Senator Claude Carignan. “Facebook and Google's monopoly practices have resulted in a market failure for news media in Canada and abroad,” witness Jamie Irving, News Media Canada vice chair, told the committee Wednesday, adding that in 2020 Facebook reportedly made $230 billion (CAD) in global revenue. In Canada, he said, Facebook had revenues of $3 billion while Google had revenues of $5 billion, and the Canadian journalism industry is estimating a loss of $500 million per year. “Yet they refuse to fairly pay news publishers for news content. Over 80 per cent of online advertising revenue in Canada has been swept up by the two companies. Local news and journalism jobs are disappearing due to the monopolistic practices of Google and Facebook,” Irving said. If passed, the bill would amend the Copyright Act to allow for Canadian copyright owners to be paid for their journalistic works that are reproduced or published by digital platforms. In the bill, digital platforms are defined as an accessible public service through the internet or other digital networks “and on which works can be reproduced or published, whether or not those works are reproduced or published at the initiative of the owner or controller of the digital platform.” Irving, however, went on to note that modifying the Copyright Act would be “extremely cumbersome, extremely time consuming and very, very complicated” and that time was of the essence. According to Irving, daily, regional, community, and ethnocultural news publishers, which account for more than 90 per cent of news readership, are all recommending a digital platform act like that of Australia, which passed legislation where publishers can negotiate contracts. The Financial Times reported the move is bringing in roughly $200 million US dollars per year. “What we really need is speed and clarity, and so when you look at the approach that's been taken with the Australians, it's been incredibly efficient and very effective and providing material settlements,” he said, adding that France went through the copyright approach and has turned up with less financial results for the industry. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada research chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, said he welcomes the bill insofar as it “has sparked discussion and public debate on the future of media and journalism in Canada” but “respectfully” thinks “it is an ill-advised foray into copyright.” Geist’s main gripe with the bill was its seeming lack of understanding of how technologies work on Facebook and Google, in that the platforms often share hyperlinks with a small blurb or title from the article. Senator Carignan originally excluded hyperlinks from the bill, according to the minutes of the committee's meeting on June 6, because Canadian case law says that a hyperlink is not a republication. However, the Senator did note to the committee at its previous meeting that he would welcome amendments to include hyperlinks. “I should caution that the solution is not to expand the scope of the bill by covering hyperlinks, which would run counter not only to the established law but create a risk to freedom of expression by limiting the ability to cite other works,” Geist told the committee at Wednesday’s meeting. “Even if a blurb was viewed as a substantial portion of the work, copyright law already would address and require either a license or that the work be covered by an exception, such as fair dealing which... the Supreme Court of Canada views as a user's right.” Geist also noted that organizations are often the ones to post their own news articles and therefore, to compensate them “would create an odd dynamic where they could effectively guarantee payment through their own social media.” Recently, the government has stepped in to help the news sector through initiatives like the Local Journalism Initiative, the Journalism Labour Tax Credit, and a digital news subscription tax credit. Geist said more government intervention “runs the risk of self-censorship by Canadian media organizations” by blurring the lines between editorial content and business which could hurt the credibility of the industry. Kevin Chan, head of Public Policy for Facebook Canada, said that Facebook recognizes that “these difficult times” and shifting consumer behaviour from print to online have been very tough on the media, however, the company already “works directly with Canadian news publishers,” which includes the free distribution of their news links taking consumers directly to a publisher’s website and generates “24 million pageviews for free.” He also noted that Facebook started the Facebook Canadian Press Fellowship, which began as a $1 million program and to date has created 10 new jobs. When asked what the annual advertising revenue was for Facebook in Canada, Chan said he was not privy to that information, which was the same answer he gave to the House of Commons Heritage Committee when he testified in March. In regard to S-225, Chan said he would “simply add that Facebook takes intellectual property rights very seriously. Copyright infringing articles are violations of our community standards, and we remove them from our platform when we are in receipt of a valid report from a rightsholder.” Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has also said legislation would be tabled in the House to ensure Google and Facebook pay for the news content, however, nothing has been presented yet on the government side of things. -- Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Hannah Daley at hdaley@thewirereport.ca

Copyright reform not the best way forward for journalism remuneration: S-225 witnesses

Broadcast | June 18, 2021

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Copyright reform not the best way forward for journalism remuneration: S-225 witnesses

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