Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gavin McGarry]

I read about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Del Mastro.

Mr. Angus, you had a brief question about BitTorrent.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes.

You talked about BitTorrent, and we sort of went over it. To preface, in the late sixties FM radio was suddenly the coolest thing, but back in the 1930s, FM was outlawed by Congress because it was a threat to RCA, which had bought up all the AM radio stations. We went for 40 years without hearing FM, and then suddenly we were all enthralled with it.

I'm interested in BitTorrent. As legislators, we recognize we're going to have to have the web and it's going to be there, and in Canada we probably can't do three strikes and you're out. But everybody says BitTorrent is the bad guy; BitTorrent is the piracy. I've never heard anybody say anything positive about BitTorrent, but it's being used by everybody.

As legislators, is it reasonable to constrain BitTorrent? What does BitTorrent do? Is it a negative force, or does it have a positive distribution potential for moving forward?

[Gavin McGarry]

You can go to our website, Jumpwire Media, and you'll see “Torrent Tracker Reports” there. It will take you through exactly what we're doing with BitTorrent. Also, under my blog, you'll see a video. I just spoke for about for an hour and half at Cannes, and you'll see a good overview of that as well.

I know the CEO of BitTorrent, Eric, very well. He was speaking at the Banff World Television Festival. That's where we met, and that's where I got the idea of trying to get the data off BitTorrent. I called him up and said, “I want your data”, and he said, “I don't keep any data, because we're getting sued every week”.

People are starting to realize that the reason people share content on BitTorrent--and why BitTorrent is so interesting--is that you don't have to pay for it, first. You get the content you want--it's the ultimate lab. And there are only about 100 million people around the world who use it.

Secondly, we did some research. We've been tracking everything since June 2008, when Hulu went up. We tracked all of Fox's content beforehand and afterwards, and we found a decrease in BitTorrent usage once Hulu was available. We're seeing that a lot.

I was at a round table in Ottawa, and it was the same sort of thing. The people were saying they go to websites all the time to watch videos; they were going to MTV. We're starting to see that shift.

The problem is that the broadcasters didn't keep up fast enough. It's expensive to deliver video; they wanted to do it streaming. I had talked to broadcasters three or four years ago and asked why they didn't use BitTorrent.

BitTorrent is the easiest, most efficient way to share files, not illegal content, but to share files, on the Internet. The more people who share it, the easier it is. That's why Napster took off. To understand how BitTorrent works, if you have a piece on your computer, and you have a piece, and three people have a piece, it takes a long time to download, but if you have 3 million people on it, then it's dispersed.

Why some country—and maybe Canada is that country—doesn't do a deal with BitTorrent to say we're going to figure out a way to legislate and monetize this, and we're going to allow BitTorrent in Canada, but you have to pay for it in some way, shape, or form, and even have that exercise....

But I have to preface that by saying...because earlier you were talking about how it—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No, you're right on the mark there. Keep going. Don't stop now.

[Gavin McGarry]

Mr. Armstrong had a really good point earlier. He asked how we tell our trading partners, when Canada...we changed our regulation for video, we were the number one pirater for videos and movies, because people were walking in and doing videos. Anik E was hacked by a Canadian, to take all the anime.

And, yes, that's the balance...but that's your job.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

To members of the committee, as somebody who comes from Fergus, Ontario, I have to say that never has Fergus, Ontario, received so much attention since Adam Ferguson founded it in 1834.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much for your appearance.

This meeting is adjourned.