I think part of the issue is that we aren't actually looking at real numbers and real situations. I don't believe there has been a very clear, honest audit of what the digital landscape looks like today. I think there's a lot of conjecture. I think there's a lot of speculation. I will definitely be the first to openly admit that this is not an easy sector of the industry to be working in. Digital distribution, self-distribution, is not for everybody.
I certainly don't have issue with regulation. If I were presented with a piece of legislation that had a clear and concise goal of what it wanted to accomplish, how it would go about it and how it would impact digital content creators, in this example, I would be more than happy to look at it.
The problem is that Bill C-11 is so broad and so contradictory within itself, with no clear definitions and no clear terms, especially when it comes to, as an example, what's commercial and what's non-commercial.
Right now, UGC is lumped together as one big solid whole. It would include small businesses like mine, and it would include my mom, who is uploading videos of our family vacations to the platform. It does not clearly indicate what “commercial” would be. It often doesn't indicate that there's an understanding of the sheer volume of small businesses that run in the sector and the success of content, and it forgets, or misunderstands potentially, that these platforms really only exist based on the success of content creators on these platforms. If people weren't finding success and weren't finding an audience, they would leave those platforms.
As I mentioned before—not to sound like a broken record—the platforms work for us, not the other way around. If people aren't finding an audience or that community to reach out to and to build, it doesn't win for anybody on a global perspective, even on a regional perspective.