Evidence of meeting #9 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
It is refreshing to hear you, the artists, talk about the problems that you are encountering with the new digital technologies. In truth, I see these more as challenges than as problems.
The members of the Bloc Québécois appreciate the position in which you find yourselves. In fact, we agree with almost all of the comments that you made. We hold to three principles when addressing these issues. You state, among other things, that music is not free, that listening to music amounts to consuming a good, and that the person who created the music is entitled to be paid. The Bloc Québécois does not dispute these facts in the least.
Regarding the transition to digital technology, we hold to three principles. Firstly, the creative process must be promoted and supported and artists must be remunerated for their work. Secondly, efforts must be made to distribute the work of artists. Professional artists must have even more opportunities to showcase their work on various stages. Finally, all forms of piracy must be discouraged.
In order to accomplish these goals, we need to consider a number of solutions. You have not said much about these solutions and I'd like to hear from you. First of all, the lines between telecommunications and broadcasting are becoming increasingly blurred. We need to take a serious look at merging the telecommunications and broadcasting acts, for instance, to address the problem of wireless phones. Secondly—I don't know if you are familiar with the Copyright Act—we have something called the notice and notice system. Thirdly, we also have the three-strikes law. Lastly, there is the matter of royalties to be paid for MP3 and iPod music downloads.
I'd like to hear what you think about the solutions that have been proposed and widely discussed.
The first speaker can lead off.
President, Canadian Recording Industry Association
I think--if I understood it--there's the principle that music's not free, the principle that we need to encourage more opportunities, so create more new avenues. It's not just enough to create; we have to be worried about diffusion and how to get our artists' voices out in more and varied ways. The final one is how to discourage piracy.
I think this is a very clever encapsulation of the multi-faceted approach that I'm hearing from this panel, that we work on trying to achieve all of those.
What are the concrete solutions? They're twofold. No one ever, in our world, said that by passing a law we were going to change consumer behaviour overnight and turn people from taking things. People who think of music in Canada think “take”, they don't necessarily think “buy”. We don't believe there's going to be an overnight conversion. This could take a long time. We think it's a market that's worth fighting for, but we have to establish those baselines.
As for some of the techniques that are available, as you know, the French are experimenting with a graduated response regime. That's being considered in a lot of other jurisdictions. Practically everything you read about those regimes in the media is incorrect. They're filled with safeguards. There's such a thing as notice and notice. These are technicalities.
Then there is, of course, the question of levies.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Personally, which one of these solutions would you prefer?
President, Canadian Recording Industry Association
Well, I think we have to be provided with a framework. And I think that's what the panellists were saying, that a rules-based framework will help us to build a legitimate digital marketplace.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
So then, you will not commit one way or the other.
President, Canadian Recording Industry Association
I might not have understood that question.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
You are not prepared to say which of these solutions you prefer or which one is the best. What is it you want?
President, Canadian Recording Industry Association
One solution?
Perhaps I'm not expressing myself well enough, but I think the best solution is to implement a set of laws or rules that will provide an environment that will encourage creation and investment. That's what the intellectual property organizations' treaties were designed to do. When you see them implemented, you very clearly see a migration from illegal back to legal. One of the principal reasons you see this is that not only is there someone saying you can't do this, but all of a sudden there is an interest from investors in investing in that marketplace and developing legal alternatives that are attractive to the consumer.
It's like a carrot and a stick: you have to have great carrots--lots of alternatives.
Bloc
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's great that you're here. I'm very sorry this is just five minutes. I think we all need to go out for a beer, and we can talk into the night about this.
Mr. Millar, what's a “ubiquitous deterrent measure”? Can you give me an example?
Director, Digital Business Development, Warner Music Canada
That's a great question. Ubiquitous, for me, is one that encompasses all the behaviour types, so--
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
But you guys are talking about rules-based. Is that notice and takedown? Is that graduated three strikes? Is that what you're...? Give us something.
Director, Digital Business Development, Warner Music Canada
These are all very good examples. I'd look to Graham to provide substantial evidence on the copyright legislation part.
But I do want to emphasize—it goes a bit to the previous question—that I mentioned two elements.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Sorry, I don't want to be rude, but I have only the five minutes. I haven't heard what they are, so I'd like to know.
President, Canadian Recording Industry Association
If you're asking about notice and notice, do we like notice and notice? Notice and notice is where it's determined that somebody has downloaded something that they shouldn't have. I don't know if everybody understands how that works. We send a notice to the ISP, the ISP sends a notice to the consumer, and that's the end of it. There are no consequences.
There are countries, such as France, that are examining whether or not consequences should be attached to a failure to accept or to modify one's behaviour based on the notice.
Do I like notice and notice regimes? I think they could be a fantastic educational tool.
Are they the solution? Do they work? Practice has shown that they simply don't work.
President, Canadian Recording Industry Association
Notice and takedown is for an entirely different problem. Notice and takedown is designed to solve a problem where somebody has accessed somebody else's work.
