TORONTO – A coalition of Canada’s professional creators is offering a helping hand to the government as it considers new copyright legislation.
The Creators’ Copyright Coalition (CCC) is an alliance of national associations, unions and collectives representing more than 10,000 artists working primarily in the English language media in Canada. It has drafted what it calls a “guiding principles paper” that it says will help to “unleash the full creative and economic potential of Canadian artists, writers, photographers, visual artists, screenwriters, directors, composers, musicians and performers”.
The group’s list of proposals include:
– Payment for use of copyright material;
– “Hand-outs” must not replace legal rights;
– Collective rights management is good for both creators and consumers;
– Collective licensing and tariffs, supervised by the Copyright Board, are a better solution than exceptions from copyright infringement;
– Copyright laws must be clear in order to avoid excessive litigation; and
– There must be effective and equitable remedies against content theft.
“We are committed to working with the government to create a new bill that allows creators to contribute as much as we can to our economy”, said CCC chair Bill Freeman, in a statement. “Legislation built on these core principles will benefit both creators and users. The end goal is to get clear laws in place that allow users to access our work while ensuring creators get paid for use so we can continue innovating and contributing to Canada’s digital economy.”
