Evidence of meeting #122 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was music.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
All right, I can take it.
Did you have something, David, or not?
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
All right. Just quickly, the Beijing treaty does address this exact issue, does it not?
Director, Performers' Rights Society and Recording Artists' Collecting Society, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
The Beijing treaty addresses proper compensation for those who appear in audiovisual performances. Separately, we're talking about the definition of a sound recording, what you hear when you're watching an audiovisual work. They are two separate—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
What is it that the Beijing treaty takes care of, the audio, visual, or both?
Director, Performers' Rights Society and Recording Artists' Collecting Society, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
The Beijing treaty takes care of the audiovisual performance, the actors who you see, the performers you see on screen.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Okay, when you're talking from actors' perspective, you're talking about the actors, and you're concerned that they're not getting compensated too in these audiovisuals or—
Director, Public Policy and Communications, National, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
It's that in essence they don't have.... For a number of years now, audio artists have had economic and moral rights in the Copyright Act. We're asking that those be extended, but if you perform, call it audiovisual performance, but if you act in a movie those—
Director, Public Policy and Communications, National, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
Yes, those same rights aren't accorded, and what we're saying is that the Beijing treaty is an international understanding that the Copyright Act should be amended accordingly to say that performers have rights.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Just quickly, as an actor, though, you have to sign those rights away anyway, don't you, whether they exist or not?
Director, Public Policy and Communications, National, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
Those rights are collectively bargained, but, again, this gets to the notion that Graham was talking about earlier. Having those rights assigned in copyright legislation, not just in Canada but countries all over the world, would allow performers in their collective bargaining.... It would underpin our collective bargaining.
We already negotiate residual payments for performers, but this would underpin that and would ensure that ACTRA PRS is better able to collect money on behalf of performers in different organizations.
I realize we're way over, sorry.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
I'm going to collect that time at the next committee meeting.
We're going to move to Mr. Jeneroux.
You have one or two minutes.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Yes, about one minute is all I need.
Mr. Schiller, in your experience with the U.S. and Canadian models, what differences have you seen between the remuneration for American creators in the U.S. versus Canadian creators, and which policies are at the root of those differences?
First Director, Public Interests Research and Communications Inc., Border Broadcasters, Inc.
In 1992 the U.S. Congress recognized that copyright was not sufficient in and of itself to remunerate local television stations. They implemented a retransmisison consent regime that required distributors to secure the consent of the station owner before they packaged and sold those channels. That has become a vital revenue stream, a commercial revenue stream, and it's critical for the success of local stations in the U.S.
It's notable that in Canada, in the former government, the CRTC implemented what was called the value-per-signal regime, which was a retransmission consent regime, and it was only overturned by the Supreme Court here in Canada because the Supreme Court deemed that the CRTC exceeded its authority under copyright, and so we do have decisions that support a retransmission consent regime to provide supplemental revenues or stations. The challenge is really just amending the copyright act to remove the compulsory licence and instill a consent requirement. We believe that is critical for moving forward in a stable and profitable way into the future.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Is there anything else?
Good, it looks like you have answered all of our questions here.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here today. Clearly there are a lot of questions that are going back and forth, and it is important that the role of the committee is to ask hard questions and push back on what we hear as we continue this study.
Thank you.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Music Canada
I might add that we want our performers to live long and prosper.
Liberal
