Evidence of meeting #11 for Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
You should pay when you buy the unit upon which you put that copy.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
If I go to iTunes to buy a song, theoretically I'm buying it because I want to make a copy of it. But you're saying I should pay when I buy it on iTunes and I should pay it on top of the device I want to buy.
11:40 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
That's correct.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
That's correct. So I should pay at least twice and perhaps more often, because that—
11:40 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
You should pay a small fee, Mr. Del Mastro, for the right to make the copy on that MP3 player.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
And you can't understand why Canadians who are fed up with being nickel-and-dimed think that is unreasonable?
11:40 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
Mr. Del Mastro, you're speaking for your constituency and we are speaking for ours.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Well, I would argue that you're not speaking for very many Canadians, who are prepared to pay fair value—
11:40 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
That's not our information, Mr. Del Mastro.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
This committee has been presented with evidence, with surveys, and—
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Mr. Waddell, you had your opportunity to present. This is now mine.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you very much.
I would argue, Mr. Waddell, that most Canadians are actually in a position in which they understand what's reasonable, and if they buy a song from iTunes and want to put it onto whatever device they want to put it on.... And there are multiple platforms of devices that store music; simply putting it onto MP3 players is certainly not your endgame on this. It is certainly not.
In fact, I would argue it's almost a deceitful approach to say no, we just mean this, but then you're going to transition to something much broader. Otherwise it's completely ineffective. Nobody will be buying MP3 players; it's an antiquated technology, the same as eight-tracks are an antiquated technology. People are moving beyond them, so it will be completely ineffective.
The bill is entirely technologically neutral. In fact, the bill doesn't even touch the digital copying levy. It doesn't touch it at all.
Now I'd also be interested to know this. You said that the expansion of fair dealing wipes out revenues. Can you explain to me which revenues the expansion of fair dealing wipes out, and why?
11:45 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
May I speak now?
11:45 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
Thank you.
The fair dealing for the purposes of education wipes out $41.1 million, Mr. Del Mastro.
11:45 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
It's because it would give the ability to users to create copies again—
11:45 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
—without compensating the writers of that material and the publishers.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
The Supreme Court ruled that copying was consistent with fair dealing. Is that what they ruled?
11:45 a.m.
National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists
If made for certain purposes; yes, they did.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
No. In fact they said that copying entire documents is not fair dealing. That's not factual. So what you've presented by saying that $41.1 million would be wiped out is in fact coming from a position of not understanding fair dealing and what the Supreme Court in Canada established—or frankly, what the Berne three-step test established. It's not true. Isn't that right?
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
All right. Thank you, Mr. Del Mastro.
We're going to move to the second round of questioning, for five minutes.
Mr. Rodriguez.