I guess it all depends on how you define “inconsequential”. Accepting that $400 million figure is true. We can also say that between 2009 and 2010, broadcasters paid $17.6 million for the reproduction right in musical works alone. That's a substantial amount of money in the pockets of songwriters and music publishers, any way you slice it, regardless of the amount of money that's at issue in the music industry at large.
Again, while I don't quibble with the suggestion by CRIA and MapleMusic and others that there is a larger problem at stake here, we can't throw out the baby with the bathwater. It's been said that music and music publishing is a business of pennies, and that's very true. As you know, as a former musician, and I would argue still a current musician, every penny counts, and $17.6 million is a lot of pennies.