Yes, Mr. Angus, I agree. And I'm glad you asked the question because I think it also will address Madam Lavallée's question. When she was talking about time shifting, I misunderstood and thought it was about the recording of television programs. I think she was talking about the ephemeral as well.
I have a couple of points to make in response to your question. I'll try to make them quickly.
First, on the question of the ephemeral exception and the ability of radio stations to make copies, as the provisions now stand, the lifespan of those copies is 30 days. If radio stations want to make persistent copies of music to use as part of their operations, they can't now rely on the exception to do it. And if amended, they can't rely on that exception to do it. They need to have some other mechanism to have long-term copies. This is simply short-term copying.
But I absolutely agree with you. The fundamental purpose of the Copyright Act is to provide rights holders with the protections they need so that they can derive revenue from their creations and see a return on their investment.
Going back to Queen Anne, that revenue was through agreements, through contracts, going out to the market and making deals with publishers. And when we finally got to the recording industry, it was about making deals with the recording industry. And then consumers would place the value they wanted on the works.
When we talk about the levy, the problem is that there's a large disconnect between what the levy would be used for and what the levy would be collected on. The days of the single-use digital music player are gone. Everything is a multi-use device. People want their phones, their Internet access, their music players, and their cameras all in a single device. So how do you charge a levy for music on a device that may never see a song embedded in it, such as mine, which can take music but doesn't.
The other problem I have with it is that the coalition wants to see artists succeed in a new digital economy.