Last year, MUSICACTION provided $400,000 in direct funding for all of French-speaking Canada. That money was used to compensate 380 songwriters. We can all count, and we understand perfectly well that average support of just over $1,000 a year per songwriter is far from being sufficient.
Let's imagine that elected members of Parliament had no base salary. Their main income would come from the reproduction of their parliamentarian work, and their reports would be published in a newspaper. A fee, as opposed to a tax, would be charged for their work and would go directly to them. Those fees would also exceptionally apply to any photocopiers used to disseminate private written material.
Now let's imagine that, one day, newspapers were supplanted by digital media that would quickly, gradually and thoroughly replace traditional newspapers, resulting in a sharp drop in publication revenue. The unthinkable would happen, and printed material would simply disappear.
Let's consider what would happen next. Those same members would vote to adopt legislation that would not apply the Copyright Act to those digital devices—which would replace photocopiers—thus eliminating the fees imposed on those devices. How many members would we have a few years after that debacle?
When the Canadian government refused to recognize modern media—smart phones, PDAs, USB keys and all other devices capable of reproducing thousands of works—and it also rejected the collection of fees, as prescribed by the legislation, for those new generation devices, it compromised all the hard-earned progress made over the years in terms of creators' fundamental rights.
The obvious technological evolution was unfortunately not taken into account. Even worse, it was ignored, and the consequences already are and will continue to be disastrous for creators who are bearing Canada's cultural diversity. If nothing is done soon to remedy the situation, the tremendous damage will be irreversible.
On a scale from 1 to 10, the government recognition and compensation for creators' work has gone from 6 to -2.
So here is our answer to the question asked by the committee. Government support for creators is clearly insufficient. When it comes to assistance for entrepreneurs, which is the second group in this first point, we welcome the government's renewed support and its willingness to invest significant amounts of money in the digital economy. This evolution will take over completely when it comes to the reproduction and distribution of works in a few years.
It should be pointed out that entrepreneurs' traditional income has decreased, despite the alarming increase in the distribution of the works produced. That drop in income is also carrying over to creators. Something must be done to restore significant value to our creators' works. We think a political will to remedy the situation is the first step in that process.
Regarding support for creators and entrepreneurs, we want to quickly highlight this growing and relatively new reality that is deserving of great vigilance today. That category should receive increased funding as soon as possible. The new generation of creators and entrepreneurs provide raw materials, and develop and invest in their own work. That's what we call an autoproducer.
Let's talk about the government funding allocation method. I will only make a quick comment on that. Huge amounts of money will be made available to the major industry players. However, entrepreneurs are increasingly demanding that creators not only give up their publishing rights, but also act as autoproducers of their projects. That means those creators—who are often songwriters, composers and singers—invest instead of entrepreneurs or jointly with them while giving up the rights to their works, including neighbouring rights. Based on that new reality, we are certain that government support to entrepreneurs must be accompanied by increased compensation for creators.
Providing support for companies is a positive thing. We welcome that. However, that support must absolutely be tied to fair compensation for creators.
Right now, the expression “achieving objectives through support” certainly applies more to entrepreneurs than to creators. When it comes to industry or entrepreneurs, the money governments are providing is still key to achieving results. When I say results, I mean the production of discs and shows. Once again, the money creators end up receiving is shockingly and dramatically insufficient.
If the objective is for creators to earn from their work an average of $1,000 a year—an amount directly related to government support—we should come back to our example of a member who is working independently and, ironically, we could say that the objective has been achieved. There is some bitterness in my tone here.
In closing, the government must recognize that stakeholders in the digital economy such as manufacturers or distributors do not all contribute equitably, legally and sustainably to creators' standard of living.
One of the initiatives the industry should consider without delay in order to counter the devastating effect of illegal music distribution is the production and release of a multimedia information package for children aged 6 to 12 years.
The new legal models for digital music are far from establishing value that is sufficient and fair in the eyes of creators. Music's value must be recognized and accepted by everyone in support of creators, so that they can be properly compensated for their work. Fees applied to any digital media used for reproduction purposes would constitute considerable progress.
We need the government to take into account the value added music brings to technology industries. This wealth must be shared more equitably to protect Canada's cultural diversity in the field of song, and the government should significantly increase compensation for creators.
Thank you for listening.