Evidence of meeting #16 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 radio.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
We're just showing it at our gallery. That's all we're doing.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
But there are exhibition rights. The work belongs to its creator and that's the principle that has to be understood and complied with in our everyday actions.
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
We're not disputing that. We pay our royalties.
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
It's like changing summer tires and winter tires. It's a mechanical act that is absolutely incidental. It's just to enable us to broadcast their works.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
No, but it's good for you: you constitute an inventory, a library.
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
No we don't. We broadcast the music and we pay our copyright royalties. We pay part of our turnover. We contribute to Canadian content. We have all kinds of activities, a number of which were cited here today, through which there is a genuine contribution to all artistic and cultural communities. I believe that the radio industry conducts itself very well.
This is a matter of principle for us because it can apply to a lot of other things, like to the act of changing or modifying a piece that is too long. For example, someone has composed a piece that is 11 minutes long but it's been cut down to four minutes. So you have to pay again because it has been modified to make it a piece of a reasonable length.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
That's copyright. The copyright in question is modified by that act. The bill mustn't be considered from an Anglo-Saxon viewpoint. This isn't about copyright, but about the right of authors. So it's the right in favour of authors. That's what you have to understand.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
That's why authors have to be compensated for what they do.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Music people, unlike theatre people, aren't paid for their work as they do it. They work for six months or a year and then, if the public likes their work, they're paid for it. That's the characteristic of virtually all artistic production sectors, except for a few.
So the least we can do, from the moment a work is made public and a broadcaster copies it onto his hard disk, is to pay royalties to acquire it and constitute an initial library.
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
Mrs. Lavallée, could I put a microphone in front of the signal I'm being given, the MP3—
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
No, because I'm paying. Aren't the copyright royalties paid to authors recognized by your principle? Is the 4% that we give considered as nothing? You're telling me it's nothing. We don't have the right to reject music.
We're going to talk about that. You wanted us to talk about it.
Conservative
The Acting Chair Conservative Maxime Bernier
Thank you, Mr. Banville.
I'll now give the floor to Mr. Rafferty.
You have seven minutes.
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm very pleased to be here on this particular one, because my background is in radio. My background is in small radio, talk radio, not music, but I think the questions I have are still relevant.
Each of you can answer this question, unless your answer is exactly the same. Why do you think music companies don't send music to you in an immediately usable format?
President, Larche Communications Inc.
Different automation systems that we use, different computers, format the music differently in the way they compress it onto the hard drives. They might send it in a format that is not compatible with the automation system the radio station is using, so we have to transfer it from MPEG, for example, which is a compression format, to MP3, which is a different compression format, in order to put it in our system.
This goes back to the point that Ms. Lavallée was mentioning about the value of this. I know that if we asked record companies to send music to us in MP3 format, because we use MP3 format in our system, and we want them to upload it to our server directly, they would be more than happy to do that because they want us to play the music.
The record companies, the record representatives, and many of the artists come to our radio stations. They're asking us, and in some cases pleading with us, to play their music, especially new artists. They want to get it on the air; what do they have to do to get it on the air. They'll get it to us in whatever format we want.
The issue here, the mechanical issue, is just downright silly. It's a silly thing to say that we should pay more just for the reproduction of it. If it's an issue of the artist wanting to get more money, that's a separate issue. That's a separate copyright issue. This is like a loophole to try to get more money just because some people think that radio is doing well right now.
I've owned this radio station since 1975. When I started, I was paying 3.2% in royalty fees. I was receiving music through CD, and sometimes it was still even on records. Today I'm paying close to 9% of my revenues for it. I keep on hearing that profits are up because of efficiencies. Profits are also up because we've been better at marketing to advertisers and getting advertisers to use radio as an effective medium.
Again, there seems to be the notion here that two wrongs make a right, and it's just not right. The principle of this is not right. That's what doesn't sit well with broadcasters. We think the music industry is great. I personally have a great relationship with them, as do most radio operators. We know that we need each other. We want them to get their fair share, all of that, but this is just downright silly.
NDP
Vice-President, Programming and Operations, Haliburton Broadcasting Group Inc.
No, actually, it's better that Paul answer that question. He's much more technical savvy than I am, so I'm going to leave it with him.
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Mr. Banville, would you like to comment on that question?
Radio Consultant, As an Individual
No, because my colleague gave a good answer.