Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee hearings November 2 and 3, 2016 re Canada’s Copyright Board

Here is the witness list for the Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee hearings next Wednesday and Thursday, November2 and 3 re Canada’s Copyright Board. 

The stated purpose of the hearings is to “Study, and make recommendations on, the operation and practices of the Copyright Board of Canada”. 

The hearings will be webcast. They will take place at Room 9, Victoria Building 140 Wellington Street, Ottawa. 

Here is the schedule and witness list:

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

4:15 PM

Televised live on PTN

Video Webcast

Agenda Study, and make recommendations on, the operation and practices of the Copyright Board of Canada Witnesses Panel 1 (4:15 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.) Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada -Martin Lavallée, Legal Counsel, Director, Licensing and Legal Affairs Google Canada -Jason J. Kee, Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency -Caroline Rioux, President Access Copyright -Erin Finlay, Director, Legal and Government Relations, General Counsel Panel 2 (5:15 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.) Music Canada -Graham Henderson, President and CEO Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada -Gilles Daigle, General Counsel, Legal Services Canadian Music Publishers Association -Margaret McGuffin, Executive Director Re:Sound Music Licensing Company -Ian MacKay, President

Thursday, November 3, 2016

10:30 AM

Videoconference
Televised live on PTN

Video Webcast

Agenda Study, and make recommendations on, the operation and practices of the Copyright Board of Canada Witnesses Panel 1 (10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.) Copyright Board of Canada -Claude Majeau, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer -Gilles McDougall, Secretary General Panel 2 (11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.) As individuals -Michael A. Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law , University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law -Paul Daly, Senior Lecturer in Public Law, University of Cambridge and the Derek Bowett Fellow in Law, Queens' College, Cambridge (by video conference) -Ariel Katz, Associate Professor, Innovation Chair—Electronic Commerce, University of Toronto - Faculty of Law -Jeremy de Beer, Full Professor, University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law -Dan Glover Barry Sookman, Partner, Technology, McCarthy Tétrault -Howard P. Knopf, Counsel, Macera & Jarzyna LLP/Moffat & Co Patent & TM Agents

HPK

Amounts Paid to Access Copyright by 37 Canadian Universities from 2011 to 2015, including Average Amounts per FTE

The Copyright Board has just issued an interesting procedural ruling dated October 25, 2016 in the Access Copyright (“AC”) Post-Secondary case. Essentially, in response to a request from the Board, AC wanted to file an exhibit containing certain information on revenues from certain universities from 2011-2015 on a confidential basis. The lone surviving intervenor, Mr. Sean Maguire, objected to the treatment of this information as confidential. The Board agreed with Mr. Maguire and further ruled that AC could not withdraw the exhibit in question. The Board’s ruling of October 25, 2016 gave AC until October 31, 2016 to “initiate any recourse that is sees fit”. 

AC, to its credit, or perhaps because it recognized the virtually certain futility  of any “recourse”, promptly indicated on October 26, 2016, that  it “does not intend to initiate any recourse regarding the Board's decision to deny the confidential designation of Exhibit AC-50D, We will now send Exhibit AC-50D to Mr. Maguire.”

So, this is now on the public record. Here is the spreadsheet of the amounts paid by 37 universities from 2011 – 2015, including FTE data and amounts paid per FTE.

This is a refreshing ruling from the Board, which has arguably too often in the past been too quick to treat as confidential information that should be on the public record. 

HPK

Hellyer et al v. Right Honourable Justin Trudeau et al T-1789-16 re CETA Challenge Statement of Claim

Here is the Statement of Claim in Hellyer et al v Justin Trudeau et al T-1789-16 launching a constitutional challenge  of the Government of Canada's jurisdiction to sign, ratify  and implement the proposed CETA. 

This is big news and the Statement of Claim is very interesting indeed. It has been brought by Paul Hellyer, P.C. et al. The lawyer is Rocco Galati, who successfully challenged the former Government's attempt to appoint the Honourable Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court of Canada.

This comes at the same time as Wallonia has apparently secured an agreement in the US to put the #ISDS provisions of #CETA to the test in the #ECJ, where approval is far from certain. 

As the Guardian reports:

One concession he won means Belgium would be able to go to the European court of justice to determine whether the new investor-state special tribunals are compatible with EU law. The four-page document also contains a guarantee that the Belgian government will assess the socio-economic and environmental impact of Ceta.

HK

PS:

Note: It appears that there is a typo throughout the Statement of Claim re the spelling of Hellyer's name, which appears incorrectly as "Helleyer". This makes it tricky to search for the docket, which can be found here. This will presumably be corrected.