Industry Committee on June 19th, 2018

[Mike Lake]

As members of Parliament, we often don't agree on things. What I found during the last round with copyright was that we do agree that we all want to see fantastic content created. We all want to enjoy that content. We want to see our creators properly compensated for the content they create. There is some difference in opinion among witnesses in terms of what that looks like.

As members of Parliament, oftentimes we find that the experts are the ones who follow these issues, but I'd like to try to point my constituents to some of the conversations. What would you say to the average Canadian who doesn't live in this world other than by being an enjoyer of the content? How would you explain to them how screenwriters, directors, and producers are compensated for the work they do right now? What is the logistical reality around that now?

I'll go to you, Ms. Parker.

Then if Ms. Finlay or Mr. Stohn want to answer that as well, I'd like to hear from each of you.

[Maureen Parker]

I'll say just quickly that screenwriters do live in your communities. They're creators. They do pay taxes. They support families. They need revenue and income to do so.

Currently, there are different modes of compensation. Yes, we bargain collectively, but collective bargaining does not cover such things as secondary use. We're hearing a lot about piracy. That's a big business problem, absolutely, but at the core of our industry are individuals who create, and they are not properly compensated for all the secondary uses that are now coming into play through new technology.

In terms of what authorship grants, it's determining not just the life of the author but equitable remuneration and how that will play out. I believe my colleague spoke about that as well. That is another means for artists to be compensated. Again, that work allows individuals to become creators. It supports them and supports the telling of our stories.

[Mike Lake]

Just to clarify, though, in this case I'm not looking for how we grow the pie, necessarily, with this question. I'm talking about how we divide the pie between the three entities we're talking about and what the current situation is right now.

Maybe I'll let Ms. Finlay or Mr. Stohn speak to that.

[Stephen Stohn]

Perhaps I can jump in here.

It's really governed by some very good and effective collective bargaining. ACTRA, the Writers Guild, and the Directors Guild all have extensive meetings. I've been in some of those meetings. You do not want to be part of the extended meetings well into the night, going back and forth on exactly these issues—i.e., secondary use. They get resolved. We work together, hand in hand. You were talking about dividing the pie. That is really dealt with through the collective bargaining process, and I can't think of a better way to deal with it.

I do have an answer to your first question about the overall pie, but I won't go into it in great detail because it's not a copyright answer. We face a crisis in Canada with the influx of over-the-top services that are coming in not subject to Canadian content rules and not subject to CRTC regulation. That is a crisis in our industry that really will affect the pie itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

I'll just let everybody know that we'll go a little bit past 5:30 p.m., probably to a maximum of 15 minutes, because I know that members still have questions they want to ask.

Mr. Longfield, you have five minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

It's a great conversation we're having. It's great to get diverse views. Thanks to all of you for preparing to get here and for getting us the information we need for this study.

Perhaps this is a question for Caroline. I want to focus on something that we haven't touched on too much in looking at the music industry. We've had advocacy on having the definition of “sound recording” looked at and on the soundtrack of a cinematic work being a sound recording. The argument we've heard is that making this amendment would allow performers and makers of sound recordings to receive compensation for the use of their performance and recordings in television and film productions beyond the initial fee they get, as a union rate, for creating the sound recording. Unless it's live, they don't get paid.

How did this develop? Why did we exclude soundtracks?

Then, maybe for everybody, what would the impact be on the industry if we compensated musicians for the sound they produce for movies?

[Caroline Rioux]

I thank you for asking that, but I'm afraid I can't respond on this question. It's not the area I happen to work in. I think you've heard from other collectives on that matter in the past.

Some of my colleagues here might be able to advance an answer, but it's just not the area I'm in. I was trying to paint that quadrant earlier with my slide. That's the other quadrant or piece of the pie.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Those are different reproduction rights that we're talking about.

[Caroline Rioux]

Yes, that's right.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Alain or anybody, can you help with that?

[Alain Lauzon]

If I may, I'm totally in agreement with Caroline. As I mentioned in my speech, we're on the side of the works. We're not on the side of sound recordings. We don't know the details related to that.

[Stephen Stohn]

Perhaps I could just leap in, because we do agree on something here. That is, generally speaking, producers agree with our friends at Music Canada and the sound recording industry that this would be an expansion of copyright and a potential source of remuneration, good remuneration, for those creators, the performers and record companies, in sound recording.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

How would that affect those late negotiations that you get involved with?

[Stephen Stohn]

When the pie gets bigger, the negotiations get easier.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

It depends on which part of the pie you're looking at. The costs go up, because performers will be paid, so there won't be as much profit in the production, potentially.

[Stephen Stohn]

From the producers' perspective, we're neutral on that. If the licensees of the broadcasters need to pay a small fraction of their revenues—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay.

[Stephen Stohn]

We are generally supportive of stronger copyright, with our friends.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's good to hear, because we're trying to benefit the creators as much as we can as we look at this legislation.

When we look at blocking non-infringing uses.... We had a little bit of a discussion about CDs, but is there anything else in terms of locks on the Internet or something we need to look at in terms of the act, which isn't included in the act, that could protect against illegal streaming or illegal use of what's on the net?

[Erin Finlay]

We've touched on our main requests, but we'll certainly flesh that out in our written submissions, because it is quite detailed, and we'll give some suggestions as to what should happen there.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

It seems to me there is something technical there, and there is also some education, because when I'm streaming, I don't know whether I'm doing it in a way that the people who created the music or movie are getting paid for it. As a consumer, I have no idea.

Yes, Mr. Lauzon.

[Alain Lauzon]

I remember back in 2012 when we wanted to have notice and take down and all that, but things evolve. You have to look in Canada at streaming. In 2014 Spotify came in, so it's kind of new in relation to that. The problem in the past was that, if there was no legal service available, people would go where they could find it, so they had obviously more services and all that. The problem is—and this was the first question that was asked on the value—in digital, the value is lowering, whether it's for sound recordings or for us, the works. That's one of the things the value gap is looking at.

Obviously, I think personally there are not enough studies that are followed. If I look at other countries, the U.K., France, etc., there are a lot of studies that have been done on piracy, following that, and so on.

A way to increase remuneration besides the legal licenses that we do for downloads and Spotify is to have a regime that compensates for reproductions that are done when people don't know if they are legal or illegal.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Nantel, you have five minutes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much.

I see two big things, first the piracy thing. Stealing is stealing. How do we enforce this?

I know for many rights holders there's an impression that legislators like us tend to think this piracy thing is over, and then we start hearing about stream rippers. A regular person would think the easiest thing is to get a subscription to Apple Music, to Netflix, or whatever. Apparently not.

Let's put this aside, because we're talking about fair compensation. Would you say the “destination” concept in Europe is something that we should take into consideration?

Mr. Stohn, you talked about the Netflixes of this world that are acting like they are not behaving as broadcasters in this territory, where we pushed so much to create Canadian content, maybe The Beachcombers or your stuff. What example of best practices we should apply, according to you?

This is for Mr. Stohn or Mr. Lauzon—