Evidence of meeting #111 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was copyright.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
That's the case for, say, university campus radio or stuff like that.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Why would the mom-and-pop stations still be exempted under your changes? How would you structure it so they wouldn't be harmed?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
I think we have to have a proper way to measure this. Instead of treating everybody the same—whether you're Bell Media or a small station in Saskatoon that is independently owned—we have to find a way to discriminate between the two. I don't think it's that difficult. I think you just have to draw a line somewhere and those who fall beneath the line, such as that type of individually owned station that would find that type of payment to be critical, then you exempt them and the same thing with community and college radio.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Did you have a proposal of how one would structure that line?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
I do, but not with me today. We are prepared to put a proposal before the committee that would do that.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
If you could do that, I think that would be much appreciated.
You say that the sound recording definition for television and film soundtracks effectively exempts royalty payments. Can you explain that?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
Sure, that's another exemption. The best example I've heard came from performing artist Miranda Mulholland, who I believe is very familiar to this committee. She has written to you in the past.
The example she gives is, as a performer—not as a songwriter—she performed on Republic of Doyle. Her music is performed all around the world and aside from the original $100 payment, or whatever it is she got for going into the studio to play the violin, she receives no residual payment, whereas the person who wrote that song does.
That inequity exists in our law. It's an exemption that is worth about $55 million to performers in our country. Getting rid of it simply puts us on the same playing field as the rest of the world.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
You're saying that it has to be redefined. You have to change the definition. It's not getting rid of it, it's changing the definition. Can you provide us with a suggested wording?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
Yes, the language is very simple. It's removing three or four words.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
For the benefit of people like me who get very confused by this stuff, what are all the revenue slices from a piece of music? We hear about performers, authors and so on. What are the different slices of the pie that exist in these royalty revenues? It's odd that, for example, you say that there's an exemption for performers and creators here, other than songwriters, composers, and the musical publishers. Can you explain all the different slices of the pie that comprise royalty revenue?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
A song has two copyrights. It has the copyright that comes from the songwriter and it has the copyright from the performer. They're very different. It creates these two separate rights. They're not always the same person.
Once upon a time, in fact, it was rare that they were the same person. The job of what they called an “A and R” person in the labels, in the sixties and fifties, was to match an artist, A, with repertoire, R. They would bring them together and create great music.
Then came the era of the singer-songwriter, where they merged.
My wife, Margo Timmins, for example, did a very famous cover of a Lou Reed song, Sweet Jane. For years, when that was performed on the air, Lou Reed, the songwriter, got paid, but Margo Timmins, the performer, didn't. That was fixed in 1997, but with a whole slew of exemptions.
Those are the two basic copyrights.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
When a record label or a publisher is involved, what's their slice? Is it a piece of the songwriter slice? Is that based on a contractual arrangement? Are there more than two slices?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
Those are commercial arrangements. I was an artist lawyer for almost 15 years. In the case of the singer-songwriter, you would sign a record contract. The record contract would spell out royalty provisions, copyright, the amount of money that would flow to the artist, and what the artist is giving up. It's a commercial exchange.
It would be the same thing for a publisher. A publisher works specifically with the songs, not necessarily the master recording. Again, you would find contractual relationships that would dictate how the money flows.
Today, we're talking about remunerative rights. All of these remunerative rights benefit artists equally: fifty-fifty with labels. I think that's particularly important. Also, with the rise of the artist entrepreneur—the artist who owns their own master recordings—sometimes they have 100% of it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Thank you very much.
We will now go to Mr. Nantel.
Mr. Nantel, you have the floor for seven minutes.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
I would like to thank all the witnesses.
Mr. Henderson, I think that your presentation today was probably the best you have ever made. It is paramount to get a clear picture of what's going on with copyrights. We must also keep in mind that other major reviews are coming up. I am specifically thinking of the reform of the Broadcasting Act.
However, we're talking about authors' remuneration here, and we need to remember this. We can discuss topics such as the visibility of our culture in the context of these technological changes and everything related to that, but we are actually talking about our authors' and our artists' remuneration.
Mr. Morrison, from The Jerry Cans, I first have to say that I find you extremely refreshing. It's wonderful to realize that you've come from so far away. Yesterday evening, you were on stage, playing a show, and you're here this morning. Thank you so much. I must admit that I find it odd to hear you say that you have no idea what we're talking about when it comes to user rights for recorded artworks. I also see people here from the Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la vidéo, the ADISQ, and from the Quebec Collective Society for the Rights of Makers of Sound and Video Recordings, the SOPROQ.
I think that Mr. Henderson said it right: We have earned our living as creators, and I can confirm this as someone who was in the music scene. That's how we did it: by creating. It is marvellously refreshing to hear from you, Mr. Morrison, and I think that it is very important to remember that we work for people like you.
Mr. Morrison, can you briefly tell us what you're referring to when you say that this reform is particularly important for indigenous art forms?
The Jerry Cans
I see now that there is an explosion of indigenous music, and the economics behind it.... It's becoming an important part of the Canadian music industry. It is also being exported across the world right now.
My partner is a throat singer. We work with many throat singers and that's the most clear example of how.... When these songs and these things are being reproduced in the classical world, and all of the different music worlds, I know that there needs to be specific attention put to indigenous art forms to protect them and to make sure that artists are getting paid for their work. If a throat singing song is sampled in a song in Germany, there must be protections in place to protect indigenous artists in Canada. That's something that can often get forgotten in the policy world. I think it's very important. It is only going to become more important and more of an issue.
I'm sorry, I'm speaking too much.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you. You got it right on. If this is going to be the next wave, let's get it right from the start.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
It links directly to Miranda's violin part in Republic of Doyle, because a throat-singing performance could be not compensated properly.
Mr. Henderson, you referred to your wife, to Cowboy Junkies. I still remember Prime Minister Trudeau crying when Gord Downie's death was announced.
Being from Montreal, I remember that there were a few bands from the rest of Canada that would give a few concerts at The Spectrum at the time, and Cowboy Junkies were among them, as well as The Tragically Hip. Mr. Trudeau cried so much, and he was so right, because Canadian identity is in The Tragically Hip so much, and in other bands.
Can we protect Canadian content now, as we did before, in this sea of content coming up? I'm sure we can, but I'm asking you how important it is to creators.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
One of the reasons we can protect it is just by how fantastically good it is and how good it has always been. It has always been able to stand on its own. It was assisted by Canadian content rules, but at the end of the day, what made those rules work was just how fricking good the music was.
I want to point out also a commonality between Mr. Trudel and Mr. Morrison. Mr. Trudel made the point that the Internet, or this system, is poorly tailored to classical music, and it's poorly tailored to indigenous music. It's poorly tailored to what you might call a niche, something out of the order. Everything gets concentrated in the big pop environment. That is not right, and that can be fixed.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Henderson. I'm going to ask you a very short question about the YouTube situation. YouTube, by bringing music without the consumer asking for whatever song, behaves as a radio, sells advertising—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
It's a gigantic recommendation engine. It's not passive.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
That's right, so the money comes from advertising, but it's not perceived as a right in broadcasting. Am I right in saying that? That is what should be changed.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
Yes. There's a chart in front of you that shows the shocking disparity of what happens when you create safe harbours. If you look at the chart here with the little bars on the left, you can see that you have paid, advertising-supported music, so that's Spotify, people who are subscribing. There are 200 million of them. They return $4 billion in revenue. Then there's YouTube beside it, the user uploaded services. There's one billion of them and they return $500 million.