Evidence of meeting #124 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 video is available from Parliament.
October 16th, 2018 / 11:30 a.m.
Director, Performers' Rights Society and Recording Artists' Collecting Society, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
—where it's recognized that these rights have value, and these rights are to be bargained for or negotiated.
11:30 a.m.
Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, CPC
What about the revenue, what I would call the elephant in the room? We mentioned illegal streaming, which is a loss of revenue, but now there are new ways for a consumer to access visual products. Yesterday I knocked on my superintendent's door and he was watching Netflix. From an actor's perspective, what are your thoughts on the revenue you are getting from these new forms of sharing and diffusing content?
11:30 a.m.
National President and Performer, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
That's a very important point. I think as we look at being an actor in this country and around the world, it's becoming tougher and tougher to make a living.
Each one of these words I'm about to say is an hour-long conversation, but they each mean something to performers. New technology, fragmentation, consolidation, streaming services and certainly the actual cost of living if you're trying to live in Toronto or Vancouver make establishing these rights within the Copyright Act even more important, so that as technologies and delivery systems change, we can see that the long tail and those micropayments will add up to paying the bills in between the jobs we're fortunate to land.
11:30 a.m.
Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, CPC
You're saying that from the government's perspective, the Copyright Act is a way to address this issue.
11:30 a.m.
National President and Performer, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
I think it underpins each of those conversations. There'll be other work to do; the devil's always in the details. We could become a part of various international agreements and ensure that we have a Canadian context for them and that they do no harm as we enter into them. Absolutely, recognizing the rights of audiovisual performers is the right direction to go in.
11:30 a.m.
Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, CPC
Thank you.
Madam Dinsmore, I was interested to find you were willing to share more with artists than you actually do. Is that correct? You said you want the split of rights to go from fifty-fifty to 75:25. Would this mean more revenue for the artists?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory Cable, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Rogers Communications Inc.
This would mean more revenue for the artists, but it's not a bucket that Rogers controls. It's a royalty.
11:30 a.m.
Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, CPC
Okay, that's true. It's from the record labels. Are you not involved in it?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory Cable, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Rogers Communications Inc.
No, not directly.
11:30 a.m.
Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, CPC
Okay. I will share my time with my colleague here.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Let me follow up on that. Can you tell me how the revenue from Bell and Rogers—we'll start with you—is shared with the actors? Do you pay the actors?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory Cable, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Rogers Communications Inc.
I can go back over how we contribute to the system, and how ultimately that money trickles down to the actors.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
It's nice of you to suggest that the record labels should give up some of theirs. Are you willing to give up some of your revenue to them?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory Cable, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Rogers Communications Inc.
As a licensed Canadian broadcaster, we have obligations for Canadian programming expenditures—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
No, are you willing to give up more money, as you suggested the record labels should?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Regulatory Cable, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Rogers Communications Inc.
I don't know what the mechanism would be for that.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
It's a little strange that you're suggesting somebody else give up money, but not your company.
Let's go to piracy; you brought that up.
We had the guy representing border stations in the U.S. Do you know who his complaint was with? It was the CRTC—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
—for legitimizing the stealing of American signals on Canadian cable networks. You want the CRTC to enforce it; he wants the CRTC not to enforce piracy in Canada.
11:30 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
What he described was the retransmission regime whereby U.S. border stations are authorized under the current Copyright Act to be retransmitted by cable and satellite providers like Rogers and Bell.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
11:30 a.m.
Senior Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, BCE Inc.
Copyright royalties are payable every time a signal is retransmitted, so there is a payment in the form of copyright royalties, and there is a legal right to retransmit those signals. Our perspective as the largest operator of Canadian over-the-air television stations is that if we're focused on supporting Canadian culture and artists, there's certainly a case to be made for the Canadian over-the-air stations to be remunerated when they're retransmitted in Canada.
The U.S. border stations don't make any contribution to Canadian culture, so we don't see the public policy merits of their being compensated for being retransmitted here, but we certainly see public policy merits that would benefit actors, creators and producers of Canadian local TV stations being remunerated when they're retransmitted.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to thank everyone for being here. There are a lot of sharp people around the table.
As you clearly stated, with surgical precision, Ms. Dinsmore, our committee's mandate is to make sure that creators are protected in Canada. That is especially important given the strange dance going on right now between two committees which will present two separate reports. Yet the new act will have a single author, who will choose what to put in the two reports, according to the government's wishes. It is very unfortunate that the members of these two committees are working in this uncertainty, not really knowing what kind of fruit they are picking, but they are picking nonetheless. They are gathering information.
First, I would like to ask the ACTRA representatives to reiterate how important it is for Canada to manage copyright in a way that is in keeping with the times and international standards. That is not the case right now, which is creating problems for you and for rights holders alike. You just said that you can collect revenues abroad, because there is a way to collect royalties that does not exist here. At the same time, foreign rights holders are not very interested in investing or disseminating works here because they are not as well protected as elsewhere. Is that correct?
