I was answering a question in that context about the idea of having a new fee or levy put on devices that you would consume. I was speaking specifically about Blu-ray players in that answer to Evan Solomon. That was the context.
But this is a question about balance, and as far as my personal digital media consumption habits, I personally choose to buy products that don't have digital locks. It's my right as a consumer to be able to do that. As we're seeing increasingly with technology, certainly the music industry, the television industry, and the film industry are creating products where people have the right to shift things from one format to another.
An important element of this bill, as you know, is format shifting and time shifting, because it's modernization and recognition of people's consumer habits. We want to make sure consumers know that the government understands these are changing dynamics, and we want to modernize these things. So when I was talking about paying for things multiple times, it was with regard to a levy.
On where I think you and I disagree on the issue of being able to break a digital lock for personal or commercial reasons--and I understand that the Liberal Party is considering an amendment in that regard. When Napster was created by Shawn Fanning, it wasn't for commercial purposes; it was for fun. For fun, they cratered huge parts of the recording industry and took away a business model that was successful for a lot of people. Over time, things have modernized, changed, and evolved in different ways that have seen some real benefits for consumers.
However, I don't think there has to be a commercial purpose in order for it to be destructive to those who are doing the creating. The idea that we would allow people to circumvent digital locks, as long as it's not for commercial purposes, misses the point. If I digitally unlock someone's creation when I put it on BitTorrent or the Web, or circulate it with some friends on a university campus, whether I'm doing it for commercial purposes, corporate sabotage purposes, or altruistic, anarchistic reasons because I think everybody should have everything for free, the effect is the same.
That is why virtually without exception in creative communities, if you look at all the submissions we have received--we're talking about music, television, video, video games, the software industry--everybody believes that if they've invested money, labour, and effort to create products and decide to protect those products by whatever mechanisms they choose to digitally, they should be allowed to do that. And consumers are free to purchase or not purchase those devices.