Canadian Heritage Committee on May 6th, 2014

[Jason Kee]

I know, it's sexy.

It's not an exaggeration to say that digital technologies are fundamentally changing both the business and cultural landscape of Canada, both nationally and, in a very real way, at the most local level. Indeed, this is true not just in Canada but around the world.

Canadian consumers are massively connected to the Internet. Seventy-five percent of Canadian households have fixed broadband Internet access, as compared to only sixty-nine percent in the U.S. In 2010 the Internet accounted for $49 billion, or 3%, of all Canadian economic activity. It's a little staggering when you think about it, but it shows how readily Canadians are taking to working and living in an online world. Clearly, this has had an impact across all industries and throughout our culture.

The media landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade. Traditional entertainment industries have begun to harness the power of the Internet to develop new audiences in Canada and internationally and to drive revenue to creators. Digital platforms have quickly become the dominant form of distribution for music, movies, books, and all forms of creative media. The music industry is a great example of this.

According to IFPI, the industry's digital revenues grew to $5.9 billion U.S. in 2013, with explosive 51% growth in revenues from streaming and subscription services. Globally, digital now makes up 39% of all industry revenues, and in many markets it accounts for the majority of revenues.

At the same time, more music, video, text, software, and all other kinds of media are being created by more people than ever before. Every kind of creative endeavour, both amateur and professional, is being transformed by new opportunities, lower production costs, and lower barriers to entry, all made possible by digital tools and online distribution.

Online platforms are making it possible for new artists to connect directly with global markets and entirely new audiences. Google and YouTube are now major contributors to this developing ecosystem.

According to IFPI, Google Play Music All Access was the fastest growing music subscription service in 2013, and we are thrilled to have launched the service in Canada only yesterday. All Access gives subscribers unlimited ad-free access to 25 million songs from all major record labels and a number of top local and independent labels in Canada for only $9.99 a month.

But wait, there's more.

It's a cross-platform service, so subscribers can listen on their smart phone, tablet, or the web and discover new music through interactive radio stations, or generate instant playlists of music based on their existing libraries.

Google Play Music also includes the ability for users to purchase songs and albums à la carte, and to store up to 20,000 songs from their own collection in the cloud and stream them to their devices.

Moving on to YouTube, with over a billion views each month, YouTube is also a major platform for artists and fans alike. From breaking in massive superstars like Stratford's Justin Bieber and B.C.'s Carly Rae Jepsen to helping indie bands like Burlington's Walk Off The Earth cultivate strong followings to propelling new young talent like Winnipeg's Maria Aragon to public attention, YouTube now plays a significant role in music discovery, especially amongst teens. This is why Neilsen and Billboard now factor in the popularity of music on YouTube when determining the rankings of songs on the music charts.

Moreover, YouTube is increasingly driving revenue to the creator community, both emerging and established. There are over a million partners making money from YouTube, and partner revenue increased by 60% in 2013. In fact, over the past few years YouTube has generated over a $1 billion to the music industry alone.

We also recently launched YouTube Live, a new feature that lets channels live stream large events and interact with their fans in a way that simply is not possible through regular YouTube videos. Along with Google+, Hangouts On Air, and other social services, Google provides artists with powerful tools they can use to drive audience engagement.

It's clear we've made tremendous progress, and we'll continue to partner with the entertainment industry and with creators of all kinds to bring Canadian entertainment and culture to the world.

Online piracy has been an ongoing challenge for creative industries, and Google takes that challenge very seriously. We develop and deploy anti-piracy solutions with the support of hundreds of Google employees, and we invest tens of millions of dollars in new tools and systems to improve and expand our anti-piracy efforts.

Google has made extensive efforts to make it easy to submit takedown notices, whether you are a large multinational entertainment company or an independent artist. We maintain a public web forum to which anyone may submit takedown notices 24 hours a day. As the volume of removal notices continues to rise, detecting inaccurate or abusive notices continues to pose a challenge, but we continue to invest in solutions to address this challenge as well.

We've also invested in measures that go above and beyond traditional approaches in order to provide real, effective protection to copyrighted works in the online environment. For example, Google created Content ID for YouTube. With this system, rights holders are able to identity user-updated videos that contain their content, and choose, in advance, what they want to happen to that content.

This is how it works. Rights holders deliver reference files—audio or video—of content they own to YouTube, including metadata describing that content. They also tell YouTube what they want done when a match is found and then track it, monetize it, or block it. YouTube then compares videos uploaded to the site against those reference files and automatically applies the right holder's preferred policy to all matching content.

Content ID scans over 400 years of video every day against the more than 25 million reference files that we have in our database, making it one of the most comprehensive copyright protection systems in the world.

Thanks to the options that Content ID provides copyright owners, it's not just an anti-piracy solution, but it also offers new business models for rights holders. The vast majority of the more than 5,000 partners that make use of Content ID choose to monetize their claims rather than block content. Consequently, Content ID has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for partners. In fact, recently the Toronto Star reported that mashups and fan-made videos are actually generating more money for record labels than their own music videos they have put out.

Google has also made a number of other innovations that allow us to better protect creator content, such as prioritization for legitimate content sources, as well as ongoing collaboration with stakeholders to make sure our efforts are working hand-in-hand.

As I noted at the beginning of my remarks, it's clear that Canadians are adopting digital technologies at a rapid pace, and they are eagerly consuming and creating online content.

The evolution of Canada's media landscape will continue to bring about significant change in the years ahead, and Canada's entertainment industries are keen to grow and adapt.

We're eager to help, and we are devoting significant resources to ensure that Canada's cultural industries will have every advantage they can get to thrive in this new digital economy.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Erdman from Deezer. You have the floor.

[Justin Erdman, Managing Director, Canada, Deezer]

Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak here today. My name is Justin Erdman. I'm a drummer, a huge music fan—heavy metal, in particular—a 12-year veteran of the Canadian music business, and the Canadian managing director for Deezer, the most widely available subscription streaming music service on earth. We are currently operating in 182 countries, with over 30 million songs streaming on the web, smart phones, tablets, and dozens of other devices.

My teammates and I are proud to have launched Deezer in Canada with a real reverence for and commitment to this country. Our nation's unique listening habits are a function of our multiculturalism and multilingualism, so we have ensured right from the start that we have representatives in both Toronto and Montreal and that we have catalogues from not just from the major labels, but also from as many Canadian independents as possible in both official languages, and many languages beyond. Just recently, for example, we added a huge amount of the franco-Québec repertoire from our friends at Distribution Select. We are proud to have their catalogue available on Deezer.

Mr. Vice-Chair, I saw from a previous meeting's transcript that you're currently a Deezer user. I thank you sincerely for that, and hopefully our new additions to the catalogue will improve the experience for you.

Speaking of which, we are equally proud of a self-imposed mandate. We deliver a minimum of 33% Canadian content in our recommendations and promotions, with a goal of promoting Canada's incredible musical pedigree as well as amazing young Canadian artists whom we aim to develop into global stars.

Deezer's reach and unique human-based editorial approach helps Canadian stars break out beyond our borders. In our first year we've helped to promote internationally artists like Wildlife, Misteur Valaire, July Talk, and Brett Kissel, whom we've spoken of before, and we go even beyond that. In less than a year, starting with our official launch in June 2013, we've now directly invested several hundred thousand dollars into promoting Canadian artists, their albums, and the tours and festivals they perform in.

Even in its relative infancy, streaming is a highly competitive business with small start-ups and giant conglomerates alike jumping into the fray. Each company has different goals, but I believe my teammates and I are in it for the right reasons: introducing Canadian artists and music fans to an exciting future in which more artists become successful, more music is listened to, and the Canadian music business grows rapidly because of technology, not in spite of it. I have a few ideas for specifically how we can help that process along.

I've read with great interest the transcripts of previous hearings on the topic. You've covered a lot of ground and you've had a lot of champions of the industry here before you. We're a varied bunch and yet we all share a common thread. We are the beneficiaries of years of robust government support of Canada's cultural industries, and in music, through Canada Music Fund, FACTOR, Musicaction, and other structures, as you've heard. The support is more important than ever but perhaps the time is right to begin an evolution of these structures.

We're entering the third generation of the music business, the post-piracy years. The first generation was physical objects being sold, records, cassettes, CDs; the second was digital files, MP3s; and the third was streaming, a service-based model as opposed to selling a thing that fans then own. This phenomenon has been called the rentership society. You may have heard this term. Young people see no need to buy things as they once did. With homes, cars, cable TV, and of course, music, you can rent them all with no commitment.

But where does that leave our precarious music business model that is predicated almost exclusively, until recently, on selling things? Well, that's where music streaming answers. A recent speech at the global music industry gathering Midem, by Marc Geiger of William Morris Endeavor, the global talent agency, suggested that subscription rates will actually rise over the next 10 to 15 years, and the commonly-accepted view of the music industry's glory days being long past is simply a misunderstanding of current trends. The fact is fans will spend more money each year on music through subscriptions than they did in the previous two music business generations. As an example, at Deezer's regular retail price of $9.99 for our best service tier, that equates to approximately $120 per year per user. In previous generations, the average was between $40 to $55 per user per year, depending on which source you use. More money in the system means that labels can afford to invest in more artists, and because the services are available on so many devices and are so easy to use, fans listen more. In the case of Deezer, it's around 60 hours a month, on average.

So streaming is quite simply the future. And now the challenge before all of us is to arrange that path as neatly as possible. This is not just self-interest as a business person; this is much more self-interest as a music fan.

Here are four suggestions on how to do this. I should point out they are not the official position of my employer. They are more based on my individual experience. Previous to Deezer, I was at Universal Music Canada, and before that at MuchMusic.

First, encouraging foreign investment in music technology is vital. Music technology is an incredibly hot sector. Streaming services, apps that supplement the listening experience, and Internet-connected audio hardware have all seen a huge amount of activity of late. Deezer is arguably the best example of how a foreign-owned music technology business can inject new direct funds into the Canadian music industry, and we should seek new ways to encourage others to do the same. The most immediate way would be to streamline the set-up of international branch operations such as the one I set up for Deezer, and to provide guidance and assistance when it comes to following the various administrative and taxation policies currently in place.

I spent a lot of time just learning what the right questions were, and I'm still figuring out the answers.

Second, we should incentivize telcos to include music as a standard part of each cell phone plan. Mobile is the future. According to the CWTA, there were 27.6 million subscribers in Canada in 2013, and more than half of that number have smart phones that are primed to use music services like Deezer. Two-thirds of our user base currently use Deezer on their mobile devices. So if telcos and their devices are the access point for the music business of the future, we need to ensure that the telcos see their role here as fundamental to the sector's renaissance and growth, and that they are given good reason to participate.

Third, I would like international streaming services to be able to access grants or matching funds to promote Canadian artists internationally. Currently we can't do this. We have to have the labels or artists do this themselves, which just adds an extra step. Instead I propose giving services like Deezer access to at least matching funds specifically for international promotions. This will benefit artists, music fans, and of course services like ours that are providing jobs and direct investment in the country.

The final point is education, something many of my colleagues have brought up in previous meetings, but I come at it from a different angle. Having pirated music myself in the past, I know how easy it is. I know how impossible it is to legislate it away. Students are the biggest consumers of music, and many build their identities around the music they love. So let's focus on getting students using legal music options earlier and thus educating them on the value chain that makes their favourite music possible. Let's include streaming options as part of their education. They will then access legal music that compensates creators. As they get older, they will hopefully continue to be subscribers benefiting the next generation of developing artists.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to the questions. First off we have Mr. Dykstra for seven minutes.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate all of you being here.

We've spoken a lot about the elephant in the room, in always referencing the fact that the industry has changed so much. So it's good to meet both Justin and Jason whom I'll refer to today as the elephants in the room in reflecting the changing industry.

Jason, to start with something totally off topic, when you started speaking, I was thinking, “This guy's from Google, but he actually has a voice for radio”, so I was quite interested in seeing that you had shifted over.

I really would like to get into the discussion about exactly what you deliver, because it is fundamentally one of the major reasons why we're doing this music study. That is based, Justin, on your company's efforts to ensure that people can have as much access to music as they possibly can, and likewise, Jason, the recent announcement on your company's foray into this from a Canadian perspective.

We have heard a lot. I don't know whether you have had a chance to read some of the testimony here, but one of the biggest issues facing musicians in Canada today is that they are making little to no money on the art they are producing and the music they are playing, because the vehicle for actually accessing financing or rewarding their creative efforts is subject to .005¢ or .004¢ each time their song is played. We have had accounts of a band's songs being played hundreds of thousands of times and their receiving a cheque for $47.50 for that effort during a year.

I'm wondering how you respond to that, because we are going through a fundamental shift, and all four of you have acknowledged the shift we are going through with respect to the industry. But you guys are the elephants in the room, and I wonder how you respond to the future of Canadian artists, the future of their opportunity, not only to produce and be creative but also to make a living.

[Jason Kee]

I'll start more generally and then move to some of the specific discussion on streaming.

I think the representatives from CIRAA in the previous panel summed it up with a beautiful phrase, which is “the artist entrepreneur”.

One thing you will find general consensus about is that the paradigm is shifting, the ecosystem has changed fairly dramatically. There are many reasons for that, but basically all of them are online related.

We're also finding ourselves in a situation where the skill set that is required to be successful has also evolved. The cases that I always see, the stories of the artists who seem to do extremely well in the ecosystem, are the artist entrepreneurs. Anyone who wants to engage in a business online has to not only be producing an amazing product that people love and then they can distribute to global audiences, which all of the online platforms are there to help with, but also have to be skilled at how to engage with their audience, understand who their audience or community is, and have the skills to build those communities. These are marketing skills.

The most successful stories that you hear time and time again are about the ones who have a natural gift for it, or, if they don't, are able to link with those people who do, whether they're working in-house at services, or whether this is label 2.0 where it's essentially the people who know how to leverage social media platforms to drive audience engagement.

Also, it's an understanding that the entire mix of income that's going to be flowing to artists is evolving as a consequence. The amount of income in the pie that you're going to see from purely recorded music, I think will not be as significant as it used to be for the majority of artists, not the least of which is because there are a lot more artists, amateur and professional, creating a lot more content than there used to be on a global basis. This has a natural inflationary impact.

The line between the professional and the amateur, the established and the emerging, is extremely blurry. Essentially it's just a matter of whether or not you're trying to do it professionally or not, and whether or not you can hack that. Certainly there are plenty of artists historically who would—

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Just remember I have seven minutes.

[Jason Kee]

Oh, I'm sorry.

Essentially that line has always been blurry and has been thrown into stark relief.

[Justin Erdman]

Two of my favourite metaphors apply here. One is the complete breakfast approach. Music as a primary revenue source for artists may change in terms of importance, but I think the clever artists and the passionate artists will find ways to build that complete breakfast with their music streaming and music downloads and merch and touring to create that complete breakfast of revenue streams.

In the long run, as long as they're shrewd and savvy about it, they'll probably be fine.

When it comes to the black box of how artists get paid once the royalties are paid to the people who own the rights to their masters or publishing, that's territory that I'm really not qualified to comment on. In my previous role at Universal perhaps a bit more, but the business models that were in place for the sale of music, in terms of the deals that artists have with their labels or publishers, will probably have to evolve somewhat.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

This one is for all four of you, and it relates to the next piece of our puzzle and that is how we as a federal government fund the music industry. We fund about $25 million into the industry on a yearly basis.

The companies of all four of you, whether it's digital or streaming, are engaged in a whole different sphere of what this fund was originally set up for or responding to.

First, I'd like to get your comments on how we could change the structure at FACTOR to address the direction that all four of your companies have moved in and continue to move in, so that taxpayers' investment in musicians will be relative to the industry they're going to grow into, based on the fact that you are basically the carrier and seller of their product.

I know there is not a lot of time, but I'm hoping to get a response from each of you.

Second, I wonder how your companies have felt about making an investment back into the industry so that we can structure FACTOR in a way that it isn't only government funded but also funded by companies like yours that could help alleviate some of the need that we've heard from those who would like to seek or achieve some of that funding. It would seem to me that it would not be a bad opportunity for your companies to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

We'll have to have some quick answers, please.

[Eric Albert]

It will be very quick. To answer your question, if you take Galaxie, which is our core service, it is a regulated broadcast service in Canada. Therefore, we do have Canadian content requirements and we also have Canadian content development requirements.

A percentage of our revenues generated by Galaxie actually goes back into the system, to FACTOR, to Musicaction, and a percentage of those funds also goes to what we call the Galaxie rising stars program, which is money directed to music festivals, for example, to foster the creation and the emergence of new talent. So we're already doing that today.

One of the recommendations in our submission is that part of that money that's going into FACTOR and coming from the CMF, as I think was mentioned previously, be directed to the creation of broadcasting platforms. When I say broadcasting, it can be streaming. It would be originating from Canada, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with companies coming from outside and promoting Canadian content, but we should as an industry have homegrown Canadian companies as well that achieve the same objective.

For example, one area where we could generate a little bit more money is to foster the creation of more technological companies that would focus on the creation and the fusion, if you will, of Canadian content.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Okay. We're going to have to move to Mr. Nantel, but I know there can be some responses back.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Absolutely, Mr. Chair.

I am actually going to ask Mr. Kee and Mr. Erdman to continue answering Mr. Dykstra’s very helpful question.

Could you give Mr. Dykstra an answer in short form, if possible. It's a good question.

[Justin Erdman]

So far, we have preferred the approach of taking some of the subscription revenue that we have received from Canadians and directly investing that back into promotions towards our own platform. It's not entirely self-interest; it definitely has to be a mix of both.

I can't speak to what the appetite would be for putting some of that money into the CMF. That's probably a larger question I would have to take back to Paris.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Kee?

[Jason Kee]

Looking at ways that we can contribute, even if it's not necessarily providing a mandatory monetary contribution to a fund versus other things that can actually be done, certainly we as a company would be more inclined to look at what can we do creatively to actually promote Canadian content.

For the launch of Google Play music, we made sure that we had a number of playlists basically promoting Canadian artists and so on and so forth, because we knew how extremely important it was. And so, looking at those elements of contribution....

I know that some other witnesses have mentioned the extension of conventional radio regulations to online platforms.... It's something that we would. frankly, be concerned about for a number of reasons.

First, to the extent that the overriding policy objective of the broadcast regulation is to promote the creation and distribution of Canadian content, we have to look at the market and see whether or not that is already being accomplished, and thus whether or not it necessitates regulatory intervention.

Second, I would be very concerned about the impact that would have on the introduction of new services in this country. As has already been alluded to, it's a very complex place to do business in the music space. Licensing is extremely complicated. Adding additional regulations on top of that with respect to mandatory contributions or a mandatory percentage of Cancon would be a significant disincentive for a lot of online services and would not be beneficial to consumers, because it would mean that you have less competition.

It also is not beneficial to artists, because it means that you will have less competition. When there's a plethora of online services operating, each artist has a better position to negotiate with us, because they can say, “Well, if you don't give me the rate that I want, then I'll just go to your competitor because people want my music.”

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

In the previous meeting of this committee, we were told that the situation in Sweden is just marvellous because creators there all get a share and receive incredible royalties. My conclusion is that we will have to recommend that the government take a look at the industry there. I get the impression that it will be difficult to stick with broad principles and to avoid getting into micromanagement.

I know the subject reasonably well. When Jean-Richard Lefebvre talked to me about Galaxie almost 20 years ago, I told him that I hoped that, when he played one of our songs, he would give us 10 times what a commercial radio station gave. I added that, if someone subscribed to his service, that person would clearly never buy discs again. Remember, that was 20 years ago.

In this kind of situation, we must not get into micromanagement; we should be looking for great unifying principles instead. I do not know whether everyone would have said the same thing, but, when Alexandre Taillefer told me that he had bought the Karaoke Channel and then Galaxie, I quietly said to myself: “He is buying Galaxie, but who listens to that?”

You mentioned metadata in your presentation. I want to ask you what you would tell your mother, clearly and simply, if she asked you what you do for a living.

[Eric Albert]

That is a very good question.

In the last few years, we have assembled a number of companies, including Galaxie, the Karaoke Channel, Max Trax, a competitor of Galaxie in western Canada, and Concert TV. Our objective is to become the biggest supplier of music services to telecommunications companies in the world. All our acquisitions and all our development focus on that objective. Our company was born in Montreal, it operates in Montreal and it employs close to 200 Canadians. Our contribution to the Canadian music industry is quite significant.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

I understand that very well. I remember great programmers like Henry Van Den Hoogen, who works with you. A lot of well-known people in the music world are there.

Could you tell me how it works? I assume cable companies, and television and telecommunications distribution companies use your service. For example, people listen to 541, a jazz radio station. Do you receive royalties for the package or for each of the stations?

[Eric Albert]

We get royalties for the package. There are different models, depending on the product, such as with Galaxie or Concert TV, but, in some cases, depending on the value of each transaction. However, as one of my colleagues mentioned, for Galaxie, the bundling of services is the model we have used with cell phone companies. The service is included in the monthly subscription the cable companies pay and it is free for the users.

The model works well, in our view. We also support the idea of bundling services with telephone companies. The model is used around the world, by the way. It is not unique to Canada.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

I looked at all your sites yesterday. You are right, Mr. Erdman, I am a big fan of Deezer. I imagine that, if I had accounts with other service providers, I would feel like I was at an all-you-can-eat buffet. It is great for consumers, but there is the whole question of how complex our market is. You are not selling lawnmowers. A lawnmower for a francophone and a lawnmower for an anglophone is still a lawnmower. But it is very tricky when we get into music and culture. That is why it was important for you all to answer Mr. Dykstra’s question. It is a very tricky issue.

Other people have told us that it is important to have a policy for defining, facilitating and establishing the major foundations for accessing our culture through these new platforms. In your case, I saw that Galaxie’s services go from TVs to cell phones. So your intention really is to get into telephones.

I tried to subscribe to Google Play myself, but I was not successful. It is probably because of the generation gap, it is too complicated. I have the app for Deezer, but all the models are different.

As a smartphone user, I have a monthly subscription to Deezer. If a Canadian goes to Google Play…

I saw that you have an agreement with SOCAN; it was announced at your launch yesterday. Is that agreement for streaming or per purchase? I saw that you were asking $1.49 for a song by Coeur de pirate or Brett Kissel. Is there a royalty, Mr. Kee? Is the agreement for streaming or for each sale? If it is for streaming, are those your rates?

[Jason Kee]

It's actually all of the above. The service was designed deliberately to be fairly comprehensive. It's one of the reasons why negotiations with all of the relevant collectives took some time. The subscription element is basically a streaming service, but it also allows you to “pin” the copies of the songs you want so that you can actually have them stored locally on your phone.

Also, if you are listening to songs frequently, it will automatically store locally on your phone so it won't eat up your data plan. It's actually a feature that just stays within the closed system. You can actually mix those songs with your pre-existing, pre-owned collection. The system knows which are the all-access songs versus which are your songs, so they only stay active and usable while you actually have an active subscription.

We also offer a storefront, where we will basically sell songs between 99¢ to $1.49. Again, albums are offered at a standard $9.99 rate, mostly because we see that different markets have different needs. Not everyone wants an all-you-can-eat subscription. Again, it's a fantastic value actually. Justin took my talking point with respect to it. It represents more than 100% of the average spend, if you actually stay with a subscription service every year. Not everyone wants to do that. If you want to buy à la carte, you can do that. We don't see those as mutually exclusive services. We didn't want to launch a service where they competed, so we actually have all of them.

Similarly, there's again a cloud function where you can upload your own songs to the cloud and stream them back. Again, we have the clearances from the collectives on that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you.

Mr. Dion, you have seven minutes.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

Back to the elephant. I think maybe it's one of the main reasons why this committee focused on the music industry. What triggered it? One of the reasons is the pressure we received from artists that they were having difficulty making a living. We have statistics showing that their earnings have been affected, but at the same time Canadians, for good reason, love the new technologies that you are able to provide them. So we need to adjust these two, and that means an adjustment of federal policies.

First, do you agree that there is a problem, or would you say it's only a lobby by those who don't want to adapt? That question is for each of you.