Our recommendation has two components.
First, guidelines should be incorporated into the act so that the tariffs of the Copyright Board of Canada align with those that apply to our neighbours to the south. Streaming should have the same value, whether in Canada or the United States. Guidelines should also be provided for the Copyright Board of Canada to respect agreements between users and collectives.
Second, it is 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, that tariff should be subject to mandatory collective management. Better still, equitable remuneration, which is paid half to the performers and half to the producers of sound recordings, should also apply to webcasting on demand, as is the case for radio.
Finally, our last recommendation is very simple: 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. Adopted in 1997, this exemption does not apply to authors and was intended to be transitional. Twenty years later, the abolition of this discriminatory measure is urgent.