Canada: Copyright review urges update for AI-made content

The parliamentary committee reviewing Canada’s copyright laws is calling for greater clarity on ownership rights for computer-generated work, among other legislative updates.

The Liberal-majority House industry, science and technology committee presented its statutory review of the Copyright Act to Parliament earlier this week. It conducted more than 50 meetings featuring over 260 witnesses and collected almost 200 briefs and another 6,000 emails and other responses, since the start of its review in February 2018.

One of the report’s 36 recommendations is for the government to create laws that would make it easier to determine who owns intellectual property that’s created using artificial intelligence (AI).

The report says these laws should “help Canada’s promising future in artificial intelligence become reality” by drawing from well-received laws in other jurisdictions that help distinguish work made by humans with the help of AI from work created by AI, without human input.

The committee also recommended that the government look into giving the courts more tools to help rights holders protect their intellectual property from being pirated. This should be done while giving “paramount importance” to net neutrality, the report says. It also suggests giving leeway to individuals who illegally download movies, music or other property, and to target distributers.

“The fight against piracy should focus more on large-scale, commercial infringers,” reads the report.

The committee didn’t recommend any legislative changes in response to the potential exploitation of artists by web services like social media channels who may not fairly compensate creators.

Action would be up to the provinces, the report said.

“The Government is constitutionally limited in the legislative measures it could adopt to address these problems. For example, many legislative instruments capable of addressing the imbalance of bargaining power felt by many Canadian creators, such as contract legislation and collective bargaining, rest in the hands of provincial legislatures,” the report read.

Instead, the committee suggested the government monitor how other countries protect users intellectual property on online platforms.

The committee also recommended the government consult with the provinces, territories and Indigenous groups about how to implement a country-wide artist’s resale right, which would entitle artists to receive a portion of secondary sales.

Jurisdictions like Australia and the European Union (EU) have laws in place that ensure artists receive a portion of second-hand sales. In the EU, an artist’s resale rate begins between four to five per cent and decreases to 0.25 per cent as the sale price grows. Royalties for the artist are capped at slightly below $20,000.

An artist’s resale right would likely help painters and other visual artists, who sometimes see their work sold second-hand at a cost higher than the initial sale.

Another recommendation the committee made to the government was to update the rules of first ownership that apply to video works to be more current “in light of the digital age,” when not all “cinematographic works” are in movies or television shows.

It also suggested that the House heritage committee consider studying a number of issues in the journalism sector, including the remuneration of journalists, publishers’ revenues, copyright infringement on online platforms, and competition and innovation in online markets.

The review, which under the Copyright Act is supposed to be conducted every five years, may be the last for an indefinite amount of time. The report’s first recommendation is to no longer require an extensive parliamentary study of the act every half-decade.

One of the listed reasons for no longer requiring a review every five years was that not enough time has passed to effectively judge serious amendments, as was the case with the Copyright Modernization Act passed in 2012. The committee also recommended to the government that it undertake a full-scale simplification of Canada’s copyright laws.