Our recommendation has two components.
First, guidelines should be incorporated into the law so that the tariffs of the Copyright Board of Canada align with those that apply to our neighbours to the south or respect agreements between users and collectives, where such agreements exist.
Second, it would be necessary to introduce a right to remuneration for the digital use of performances such as the one advocated by the European group Fair Internet for Performers. In addition, this tariff should be subject to mandatory collective management by organizations. These measures would provide the performers with income in return for the massive use of their performances on the Internet. Better still, the act could be amended to ensure that fair compensation rules apply even to webcasting on demand. The royalties for this equitable remuneration would be paid half to the performers and half to the producers of sound recordings, as is currently the case for radio royalties.
Our last recommendation is very simple. It is time to abolish the exemption that allows broadcasters to evade the obligation of paying fair compensation royalties on the first $1.25 million of their annual advertising revenues. This exemption, adopted in 1997, was intended to be transitional and temporary. It responded to a particular context, which no longer exists. Twenty years later, the abolition of this measure is urgent. This exemption is all the more unfair since it applies only to performers and producers of sound recordings, but not to the authors.