No problem.
The support of the Canada Music Fund during that period was invaluable in allowing Nettwerk to continue to release great Canadian artists, all the while weathering this negative retail storm. Indeed, we have built a business that can survive and thrive in a digital retail economy. In today's marketplace you have to be everywhere, on every platform, monetizing every behaviour of your artists' fan base. The CMF has afforded Nettwerk the time, patience, and resources to build the teams and systems to do just that for our clients.
So my recommendation is don't change what is working. The CMF is working.
The title for my section should really be “Can we get on with it already?” I know the committee has heard of the dire predictions about the effect that streaming will have on the artists' and the labels' bottom lines for recorded music sales. It doesn't need to be this way. There needs to be less navel-gazing and debate about how good it used to be, and we need to get on with building Canada's retail marketplace. Streaming should be a big component of that marketplace, and the fact that it isn't today is not acceptable, especially when you see countries like Sweden having 72% of recorded music revenues coming from streaming. Recently that country posted 2013 total recorded music revenues that were 20% higher than in 2009. During that period Canada's declined to 7%.
Many streaming service providers are choosing to stay out of Canada given the uncertainty created by the length of time it takes for tariff decisions. To echo Victoria Shepherd of Connect Music Licensing:
The Copyright Board of Canada should not be seen as a barrier to business or as an impediment. Rather, it should be considered a business development office. It needs resources to ensure it can render decisions at the pace of technological development.
Without the improvements to the Copyright Board, we are simply not realizing the full potential of the dollars we're all investing.
Finally, there was a recommendation in past sessions of these hearings about committing funds toward educating young people about the costs and amount of work that go into creating music. It's a noble idea, but let's at the same time ensure a market environment that provides a multitude of licensed and legitimate music-consumption options for the next generation.
Thank you for your time.