MORALE BOOST
By:
Gordon Jaremko
Former
editor of Oilweek and a member of the Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame.
Court raises respect, but not pay, for geoscientists
The
Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta says a specialty regarded for generations as
a geek branch of industry – nicknamed human computers and doodlebuggers –
deserves greater respect. A spring judgement declared geophysicists’ portrayals
of subterranean structures worthy of copyright as creative masterpieces.
But the decision stopped short of awarding a pay increase. Earth
scientists still have to settle for their costly work being defined as public
art and made available for others’ use, free of charge, to the degree that
government control of natural resources includes compulsory disclosure to
regulatory agencies for release to prospectors.
Oil and gas
exploration firms hung on to free access to Canadian offshore and northern
geological treasure maps in the landmark court ruling.
Federal disclosure
requirements, under legislation and regulation dating back to 1950, trump
copyright recognition, ruled Justice Kristine Eidsvik.
Geophysical
Service Inc. (GSI) immediately moved to overturn the verdict in the Alberta
Court of Appeal.
Eidsvik’s verdict
covered 25 lawsuits that GSI launched against regulatory agencies, seismic
information distributors and a roll call of producers from Encana, Devon and
ExxonMobil to Husky, Statoil and Suncor.
GSI, a private
venture owned by Calgary’s Einarsson family, claimed ownership of Canada’s
largest seismic data warehouse. The treasures include a multi-million dollar
library of information about Atlantic seabed oil and gas prospects.
After a lengthy
trial, Eidsvik agreed that the status quo is hard on geophysical surveyors, but
the case suggested that the crusade for permanent intellectual property rights,
to keep results of the science confidential far into the future and always
charge industry for viewing the reports, belongs in the political arena.
“The regulatory
regime has confiscated the seismic data created over the offshore and frontier
lands, and the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act is not apologetic for it –
indeed, it makes clear that there is no compensation for any confiscation,”
said the verdict.
The regime
requires surveys to be filed with the Nationals Energy Board and the Nova
Scotia and Newfoundland offshore petroleum boards. The agencies make the costly
reports available for free after protected periods of five to 10 years. The
system is designed to help attract industry activity, starting with requests for
leases of drilling prospects. A pure copyright regime would enable survey firms
to demand payment for 50 years or longer.
Eidsvik noted that
parliament heard the earth scientists’ commercial concerns while enacting the
mid-1980s legislation that established the current disclosure code.
“There is a great
deal of expense, effort and risk in developing speculative seismic data for
license, yet the cost of duplicating the produced data is very small,” Eidsvik
observed.
Her verdict
included a quotation from a 1980s expert witness who described an early version
of the property rights crusade that had its day in her courtroom 30 years
later.
“This becomes an
emotional issue when upper management of a seismic survey house is approached
and asked to spend so many millions of dollars on a survey, and there is an
element of chance in terms of making their money back. They know full well that
the government will release the a in five years and that, after three or four
years, potential survey buyers will realize that in another year or two they
will have free access to that information,” the expert told Parliament.
“GSI was fully
aware that some of its data would have to be summited and that it would be made
public when it undertook its work on these offshore and frontier lands,” said
the Queen’s Bench judge in her 74-page verdict. “It is perhaps true that the
provisions for submission have become more onerous over time and that the
quality of the materials submitted have become better, further encroaching on
GSI’s ability to license its data to others, but the provisions have always
been there. Unfair as this may seem, it is not for this Court to re-write the
legislation comprising the regulatory regime.”
GSI insisted it
only filed its material with Canadian regulatory agencies after being assured
its intellectual property rights would be respected.
GSI said it has
uncovered “evidence of hundreds of instances where the offshore boards were
making copies for third parties, scanning data, disclosing image files, sending
data to be copied on behalf of third parties and further disclosing data to
third parties, undermining the commercial value.”
The Queen’s Bench
verdict assures Canadian and international gas and oil hunters that, at least
for now, they are complying with the accepted status quo. It will be up to
higher courts, or maybe parliament, to say otherwise about the regulatory
agencies.
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