My name is Susan Paterson. I'm the government publications librarian at the University of British Columbia. I'm here today speaking as a private citizen and not behalf of my employer.
I'd like to ask the committee to formally review section 12 of the act pertaining to crown copyright. This is an antiquated provision that serves no justifiable purpose in today's information ecosystem. Furthermore, crown copyright creates barriers to the use and reuse of government information. These statements are based on evidence from my own professional work and from working with government information librarians and other professional colleagues across Canada for many years.
In addition, Canadians from across the country and representing multiple sectors signed a petition asking for copyright protection to be removed from government works once they are made available to the public. This petition was tabled in the House of Commons on October 20, 2017. The petitioner was Amanda Wakaruk, the copyright librarian at the University of Alberta. She was unable to attend this session but I encourage you to visit her site, fixcrowncopyright.ca, or reach out to her for more information.
First, there is no justification for the existence of crown copyright. Since it is government information, it is protected by the Access to Information Act and multiple governments have claimed to support open government and open access. However, crown copyright is antithetical to these open commitments. In addition, and after almost two years of open government initiatives, an overly restrictive open government licence has been applied to a mere 279 federal government publications out of potentially 500,000 or more legacy publications.
Second, crown copyright is creating very real barriers to the use and reuse of governments works. In practice, librarians are unable to preserve and provide access to digital versions of government publications without first asking permission. As a result, many publications were deleted and subsequently lost as part of the 2012 overhaul of government websites.
Third, the provinces look to federal legislation and programs for guidance in creating their own copyright policies. Having leadership at the federal level would help these other jurisdictions. For example, here in British Columbia, the B.C. intellectual property program requires that all potential users apply for, and receive, permission for any reproduction of a work even for non-commercial purposes. The province does not even include a statement in the copyright notice regarding personal or non-commercial use of work.
In closing, when the government invests public money in a report that's made publicly available, it seems against the public interest that the government might later restrict access to the report under this current crown copyright law.
Thank you.