Thank you so much for the question.
You know, roughly 80% of all the players in the music scene, in the music sector writ large in Canada, are solo self-employed or solo operators. They are running, in a sense, small businesses. There are some larger entities, of course, but that's the reality. Their combined efforts and their combined risk....
By the way, there is a lot of risk, not just on one's financial resources but also on one's physical and mental health, in being in this business. There is a real need for people like you to really understand what we're doing and how we do it. People don't really know how the music they're listening to in their earbuds got there. They don't how it was made and who made it. That is one of the reasons that a bill like Bill C-10 is so important.
As I said in my opening remarks, COVID really has laid bare the vulnerabilities in the system. It would be one thing if this were pre-Internet, but the fact of the matter is that these massive companies are interacting with our arts and culture sector. They essentially need the content, and not just Canadian content but the content of all creators around the world. They need it in order to make their platforms roll. Too often it is especially the artists and the small independent Canadian-owned companies that get swept under.
There's one other thing that's important to note here when you're asking about the Canadian independent music scene. We're talking about Canadian-owned companies. We're not talking about multinational entities. We're talking about people who live and work in your communities, people who are developing intellectual property and many times are successfully exporting that to markets beyond our borders and bringing that revenue back to Canada.
We look at Bill C-10 as a way of really improving that and adding to that.