Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Geneviève Côté, and I am Chief Affairs Officer at SOCAN. My colleague Gilles Daigle is SOCAN's General Counsel.
SOCAN is the society that manages public performance rights for authors, composers, and music publishers. We currently have 150,000 members, and we also represent the global repertoire of music works in Canada. We thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.
No one will be surprised to learn that SOCAN has been pleading for many years for Canada to establish robust copyright statutes to permit fair and equitable remuneration for creators. The Copyright Act has always been and always will be the cornerstone of the entire Canadian creative sector.
Where do we stand on all the technological changes we are currently experiencing? The way creators are remunerated has vastly changed in recent years. Copyright royalties have always been an essential part of our creators' remuneration, and that is more than ever the case today.
As regards SOCAN and its performance royalties for the use of musical works, it is true that we are collecting record royalties. That is attributable in part—and I do mean "in part"—to the increase in revenues from online streaming. However, that does not mean that creators and their publishers are making more money.
When we published our results this year, we pointed out that the vast majority of our members who had received royalties for the ongoing distribution of their music in 2017 had received, on average, only $38.72 for their work.
Our members rely on various uses of their creative works. However, for some of those uses, the revenues they previously enjoyed as a result of other media have virtually disappeared. Royalty revenues from new uses do not compensate for the overall revenues previously generated.
The fact nevertheless remains that the contribution of copyright to a constantly changing digital environment is, now more than ever, becoming one of the pillars of creators' remuneration.
As The Honourable Mélanie Joly said in her speech on Creative Canada,
Investing in our creators also means ensuring they are fairly compensated, and can protect and make the most of their intellectual property.
SOCAN is one of the signatories to the brief filed by the Canadian Music Policy Coalition. We support all the recommendations contained in that document. Today, we want to emphasize three aspects of the Copyright Act.
The first aspect is the extension of copyright protection, which we have already discussed this morning, from 50 to 70 years after the author's death. We want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Van Loan for recently introducing the private member's bill that he discussed earlier.
With its current term of protection, Canada is a poor player on the international stage. Our main trading partners, including the United States and all members of the European Union, long ago extended protection to 70 years after the author's death. In Mexico, that protection even runs to 100 years after the author's death. Our creators here are clearly less protected than those abroad. The international standard extending protection to 50 years following the author's death was adopted in 1886. Governments at the time wanted two generations following the author's death to enjoy protection of the work. As we may all agree, life expectancy has sharply increased since the 19th century. Our major trading partners have clearly understood this.
So I will ask you the question directly: does Canada want to remain in the same category as North Korea and Afghanistan in this area? We hope not. Let's take this opportunity to show leadership on this issue and restore Canada to its proper place on the international stage.
Some commentators—very few, to our knowledge—will tell you that increased copyright protection will be provided to the detriment of consumers. However, there is no evidence that consumers would be put at a disadvantage by an extension of copyright protection.
Now I will turn over the floor to my colleague Gilles Daigle.