A necessary reminder that it’s the creators behind our stories who matter most Editor’s Note
BACK IN NOVEMBER, I attended an afternoon conference hosted by the Canadian Copyright Institute in a downtown law office with a dizzying but beautiful 53rd-floor view of the Toronto harbour. I was amazed by the turnout of approximately 70 people, representing various cultural industries whose members have been affected by declining royalties. CCI board chair Bill Harnum was also struck by the attendance, quipping that five years ago you couldn’t get people out, let alone fill a room, to talk about copyright. The issue has reached a crisis point, as the numbers demonstrate: licensing revenue for publishers and creators is down 91 per cent since 2012, representing a cumulative loss of $78 million.
The event addressed the federal government’s slow-moving review of the Copyright Act, which began under Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly’s watch in 2017. Marshall Rothstein, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, provided insight from a legal perspective, putting copyright law into the context of societal issues involving advancing technology, free expression, and the dissemination of knowledge. Lui Simpson, executive director of international copyright enforcement and trade policy for the Association of American Publishers, offered advice for how the industry could better lobby the government to make changes.