Bill C-11 committee  Good morning. Thank you, again, for inviting me to appear. I've had the pleasure of discussing copyright issues with many of you over the past years, and for those of you with whom I haven't spoken yet, I look forward to hearing your thoughts. My apologies to those following t

Bill C-11 committee  Okay, sorry.

Bill C-11 committee  It's time for us to try to contribute to a new discussion. That is, can we make technical suggestions that will help to clarify or strengthen the government's stated intentions? We think so. We are proposing four main areas in which we believe the legislation can be strengthened

Bill C-11 committee  It is correct to say that under the Berne Convention you cannot take back a right that is currently being monetized. That's one of the things we're concerned about—the lack of clarity around the broadcast mechanical. In fact, what we would be doing is creating a de facto eliminat

Bill C-11 committee  That's what it looks like. When we started looking at Bill C-11 and its predecessor, Bill C-32, we could see that there was a potential for this loophole, and we raised our concerns at that point. Upon reviewing the broadcasters' submissions, it looks like the broadcasters were—i

Bill C-11 committee  It's certainly a misrepresentation to represent royalties as taxes, because taxes go to governments and royalties go to creators.

Bill C-11 committee  This nomenclature has existed through the entire discussion on copyright over the past couple of years, and it's both misleading and harmful.

Bill C-11 committee  Right.

Bill C-11 committee  When you say they've paid once—

Bill C-11 committee  Well, as Ms. Shepherd has pointed out, they haven't paid for the music coming in the door. That music is provided to them for free. Are you talking about the fact that they've paid for performance royalties?

Bill C-11 committee  This goes back to the fundamental principles of copyright that have been globally held right back to the 19th century. There is a right of communication and a right of reproduction. Each of these rights has an individual value, and each of these rights is used differently. They p

Bill C-11 committee  Right.

Bill C-11 committee  Yes, we do make a distinction between foreign and domestic in this regard. The technical amendment we are proposing is specifically for offshore sites. It's specifically for sites that are rampant pirates and being able to create injunctions that would block them from entering

Bill C-11 committee  It's a great question, and I wish I had a really good answer for you. I don't, unfortunately, because copyright is such a complex thing. There's such a long list of components within any copyright act, and to say that this act is really good overall and this act is really bad....

Bill C-11 committee  I do think my colleagues have put forward some really helpful information today in terms of the historical context and the original thinking by the Copyright Board to have discounted rates, essentially, when radio was hurting, in order to demonstrate the music industry's willingn