Bill C-32 (40th Parliament, 3rd Session) Committee on March 3rd, 2011

[Guy Banville]

Mr. Cardin, we get along well with the artists, but we don't get along well with the mechanics.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Cardin.

I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Lake.

Mr. Lake, you have the floor.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You are doing a good job as the chair today. Thank you for filling in today.

I'm going to focus on Mr. Larche, because I don't have much time in this round.

In terms of process, in the past, you got an LP, and you played it. Your input was the music; your output was the music. Someone turns on the car radio or the radio at home and listens to the music. Now, processwise, you get a digital copy of something. How is the output now different than it was in the past?

[Paul Larche]

It's exactly the same. It's exactly the same transmitter. It's exactly the same process.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

The input is pretty much the same. It's a different format, obviously, but the fact is that your input music--a creation by a creator--is the same, right?

[Paul Larche]

I'm dating myself a little, but when I started out in radio, we played 45s. Often the 45s would get scratched, so we'd have to get the record company to send us another one, which they were always happy to do. Sometimes we'd get three or four of them.

We eventually started copying them onto what's called a “cart”; it's like an eight-track tape. So we were transferring them to tape to play on the air.

Again, there was never any rights issue at the time.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

As a customer--you're a customer as an industry--you purchase music. You pay for that music. And as a business, you play it. Your output is what you're able to put on the air, and it hasn't changed in any way.

[Paul Larche]

No, it hasn't.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Yet you pay several times. Maybe walk us through the process that causes you to pay several times.

[Paul Larche]

Several rights holders have emerged over the last 10 or 11 years that keep adding to what was already being paid. You're right, the output has always been the same. As I said before, I was paying 3.2%, and now I'm paying just under 9% in various rights. Various collectives have come forward and have gone to the Copyright Board and have argued that they should be getting more money from the broadcasters, just as our colleagues are over here, and those fees have passed.

This particular one--the one we're talking about today that is in the copyright bill, Bill C-32, which we wholeheartedly believe in and think should pass--was recognizing an unfairness that wasn't there before.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I don't know that someone listening to the radio at home would really know how that music gets from the creator to their radio and would understand these steps. It's easy to kind of slide a backdoor fee in there of $21 million.

I'll just finish my thought on this and go back to my own business experience. I was a director of ticket sales for a hockey team. It would be like us charging a price for a ticket to go to the game but then having someone collect a fee on your way in...collect a fee back on your way into the bowl again to sit in your seat--a “seat access” fee or something like that.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

This brings the 16th meeting of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-32 to an end.

We will resume our business next week.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.