Evidence of meeting #9 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 going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Okay. We'll get a line-by-line calculation of that. Maybe, though, in the interest of the discussion today--
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
Not the distribution list but the revenue for specific years, yes. I believe I will venture to say that we can probably provide you, not tomorrow but within a reasonable time, with a review of the revenue for that $126 million, which is 2009, if my memory serves me right. We can probably go back to 2000, or something, to show the trends and everything and the importance of those revenues for our artists and creators over the years.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Okay. For the purposes of the discussion today, though, surely you can give a more general accounting of the $126 million.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
We hear these numbers thrown out there and they just sit. They get reported and there is no backing--
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
No. I wish I had brought this, but I'm sure my colleagues can help me. This is the money that is collected, for example, by Access Copyright and COPIBEC for all the documentation that is used in the education system, which this bill will eliminate or threaten. It includes the payments that are made by SOCAN to musicians. It includes the payments that are made by broadcasters for the ephemeral exemption currently. The system is abolished by the bill if it passes as it is.
I can provide you with the details. I'm giving you those from memory.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Okay. I just get concerned sometimes when I hear numbers like $126 million. We're seeing that people can't actually back up the numbers--
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
Yes. I knew you would ask.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
They're often using someone else's numbers, and these numbers float out there and there's no backing to them.
Both of your organizations represent many members, and I think it's important for us, who are, typically in a study like this, going to hear from different groups coming in and telling us what they don't like about the bill and what they'd like to see changed about the bill.... But I think it's also critical for us to understand what each organization likes about the legislation, what they want to make sure stays within the legislation as we discuss what possible amendments might be put forward.
Mr. Pineau, could you start by talking about specific things about the legislation that are important and need to pass that your members want to see remain part of this legislation?
February 1st, 2011 / 11:45 a.m.
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
First of all, I think the ones that we support I have mentioned in my presentation, and I will find the page to go back to that. I'm not going to be specific about the people who come here and say they're very happy with the bill and say thank you and pass it tomorrow because it's very urgent. I think you have the list from them. We're saying, okay, it suits them and it's no skin off our nose. It's fine. You will get the list from them.
From us, I think some Bill C-32 elements are positive: distribution rights, the reproduction and moral rights for performers, the length of the protection of sound recordings, and the rights to photographers. The problem is that with the exemptions, many of these rights are undermined on the next page. That's the problem. You give rights to photographers and then you put them in jeopardy through the exemptions that you grant on the other side. It's...what's the expression?
Chair, Creators' Copyright Coalition
If I can add to that, ACTRA, the performers' union in English Canada, is very happy about moral rights for actors. No actor would like to see their image supporting some cause they don't support. Also, the photographers that I talk to have generally been quite happy. So yes, there are certainly things that we support in the bill, and we want to maintain those.
That's why I think our position has been that we would like to see major amendments to the bill, not the defeat of the bill. We want it. We want copyright reform to go ahead, absolutely.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Specifically on the making available right and the right of distribution, Mr. Pineau, you referred to that. Why are they important to your members?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
They're important to a certain part of the sector in particular. I know, from having done business with them in the past, that they're very important for the companies that are represented by CRIA, for example. Mr. Anderson has been asking for this right since the WIPO treaty was signed in 1997, so I know it's an important component of the cultural sector.
It is not necessarily.... I'm not an expert there. I will defer to my colleagues here, for example, and musicians, as to whether the right of distribution is.... The right of distribution is important to individual members whose case I'm pleading today only if they have the instruments to have them applied, and that is through their collectives.
While I will not say that say this bill is an attack on collectives--because I don't give intentions to anybody--certainly the casualty will be there nonetheless. It is undermining the collective system, and it's not proposing something that works for individual artists, as we've heard.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
And of course we have the opportunity. The bill doesn't specifically address the private copying collective, the issue around the iPod tax that the opposition parties sort of favour, but we will have the opportunity to deal with a bill. Charlie Angus, of course, has a bill put forward to address that issue, which is coming down the pike in the near future here, so we'll have an opportunity to address that issue. I don't believe this legislation is the place to try to add in something that's not there.
What effect does piracy have on your industry? Have you done any kind of calculation? You've done a lot of calculations to come up with that figure of $126 million. What negative financial impact does piracy have?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
First of all, if I may, it's not the iPod tax. It's not a tax. It's one way--it can be described as a tax, but it's not a tax--of compensating the use of the right of property. If we can't find a better system.... We had one before and the technology has made it completely obsolete. What this bill is proposing is that there's no alternative for the smaller guy. There's no alternative for the hundreds of thousands of small artists across this country in a number of disciplines. That's the problem. So it was not a tax; it's been labelled as such, and politically it's a good football.
We're looking for alternative solutions. One of the opposition parties has put a solution on the table. It's not ideal either, but it's something to look at. I don't know, but my pleading to you is “don't take that money away”.
The second point is that you say it's my industry, and it's not my industry; I'm a very large coalition of organizations of all kinds, so it's not my $126 million. There are so many millions for musicians and so many millions for writers and so many millions for visual artists. For visual artists, by the way—I'll take the opportunity—this is something that you could--
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
—as we're well over.
Thank you.
We're going to move to the second round of questioning.
Five minutes, Mr. Garneau.
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As a beginning remark, my Conservative colleagues are caught in some sort of time warp when they keep talking about iPod taxes. We're now in 2011. That was taken off the table a long time ago--
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
--and very, very clearly.
When we say businesses, we mean small, medium-sized and large businesses. We know that large businesses start off as small businesses. We recognize their fragility and we are trying to give them a chance to grow.
There may be parallels with artists. There are single artists who are individually self-employed. They may not want to become big organizations and may be happy to stay at that level, but I think what is true is that they are a little more vulnerable than larger organizations.
Now, one of the points that I keep hearing--and you brought it up today--is the issue that if you feel your rights have been violated, you have the option of going to the courts. However, most individual artists say repeatedly that this is an onerous and expensive process.
I have a question. You belong to associations and groups. Is there any service provided within those organizations and groups, if your rights have been violated, to provide resources to you to help with the litigation process? Or are you literally on your own?
Vice-Chair, President of Screen Composers Guild of Canada, Creators' Copyright Coalition
There is some within the collectives, but please understand that it is our money. It's not the collectives that are making money. They collect for us, administer our rights, and distribute our rights. SOCAN runs extremely efficiently. The numbers are public to the percentage of their overhead, and the rest of the money is distributed. If that litigation and those moneys get held up, they don't flow to where they're supposed to be.
So in theory there are dollars in there, but they come out of our pockets. When you're talking about $1,000 or $5,000 per member, that has huge implications for our incomes.
Chair, Creators' Copyright Coalition
It's exactly the same in the publishing and book sector. We ultimately have to pay for it.
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Thank you.
I believe Monsieur Pineau brought up
the YouTube issue,
the issue of so-called mashups and the provisions in the current proposed Bill C-32. I would like to know your position on this. Would you prefer there not be an exemption for mashups, or would you be happy if the exception was clearly defined so it actually said what was legal and what was not legal?
National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts
At the end of the day the issue of mashups implies the responsibility of those who make them possible. There is somebody at the end of the line in the YouTube case who makes money out of the mashups and the use of the works being made.
The way to collect that money is through that system. That's why we're saying that for the time being, if you cannot find a way to make ISPs responsible and the companies that make money out of the work of others pay for it, there are systems that exist. They could be included in the act here to make sure that the person who profits from his work at the end of the day has to pay him something. I think that's a basic principle in the right of ownership of intellectual property or any kind of property.