Evidence of meeting #126 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 film.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Director, Legal and Chief Privacy Officer, Movie Theatre Association of Canada
I don't know if I can comment on the administrative burden.
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Music Publishers' Association
May I comment? Actually, cinemas are already paying rights holders. They have deals with SOCAN. Tariff 6 says that cinemas have to pay a $1.50 per seat a year to SOCAN for collection and administration. My understanding for sound recordings is that it would be the other side. It would be the song and the recording of the song for which they would have to pay a collective management society like Re:Sound, for example.
4:50 p.m.
Director, Legal and Chief Privacy Officer, Movie Theatre Association of Canada
As I said, it's not news to anybody that we pay tariffs to certain collectives. I'm saying that I expect it would be organized in a very similar way, but it really would depend on which collective we're dealing with and what is actually being asked of us. In this particular circumstance, of a sound recording, I'm guessing it would be a collective other than SOCAN and perhaps multiple collectives. I'm guessing it would be administered in the same way, like Re:Sound.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
That takes us to the end of this round. We have enough time to do a second round of three seven-minute questions.
We're going to go back to Mr. Jowhari.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the witnesses. I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Baylis.
I have one question and that goes to Mr. Payette.
I'm going to share some statistics with you. This is a concern that I have regarding the statistic that I looked at. It has to do with the decrease in the median income of the musicians and singers. The statistic that I was looking at indicates that between 2010 and 2015, the revenue of Canadian music publishers increased from $148.3 million to about $282 million. Over the same period, the median income of an individual working full time in the Canadian music industry increased as well. Those occupations include producers, directors, choreographers, conductors, composers or engineers.
However, the median income of musicians and singers saw a decrease of about $800 between 2010 and 2015. Can you share your thoughts with me as to why that is ?
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Music Publishers' Association
There are different roles for authors, composers or performers. Music publishers represent the songwriters. If the music publishers make more money, the songwriters also make more money. However, in the global picture, there may have been fewer shows or the individual songwriters have made less money because there are more songwriters. The main problem is that the new digital environment pays less than the traditional environment. For individual writers, composers and musicians, this is very....
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Are there any amendments in the Copyright Act that you think will improve the income situation of the musicians and singers?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Music Publishers' Association
Of course, having more money coming from YouTube or other online services would make life easier for musicians and composers.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Ms. Hénault, you talked about screenwriters and directors becoming joint copyright holders. I would like to understand why.
Do you expect to receive more money or would you simply like to have that right? Can you explain the rationale behind this?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma
In terms of the royalties collected by copyright collective here and elsewhere, we are penalized in Canada because the presumption of joint copyright is not included in the Copyright Act. This weakens the ability of SAID in particular to collect directors' royalties outside the country.
We would like you to spell that out in the act. This is not revolutionary; it is consistent with case law. We are asking for this presumption to be included in the act.
We have described the work of the screenwriter and director of an audiovisual work. It is crystal clear that they are the primary owners of the audiovisual work. We would like this clarification added to give copyright collectives some leverage in collecting royalties for Canadians for works presented in other countries that have private copy regimes for audiovisual works. In some countries, in Europe for instance, there are colleges where producers, actors, and authors all collect royalties for private copies. That also includes directors.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
In this example, producers are also included. I have trouble telling a producer, who makes a lot of decisions in creating a film, that he is not an author.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma
The producer is not an author. The producer hires actors and creators, but does not create anything. He administers a production. He obtains permits to produce and present the film. He shares his revenues with screenwriters. Under our collective agreements, if an author has written the entire script for a television series, he negotiates a contract for the script. If there are revenues, he will receive some royalties. This is fundamental. If it is not recognized in Canada that, in addition to being paid for the work, individuals can be compensated for the work's success, no creators would be interested in doing the work.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thanks for sharing your time, Mr. Baylis.
I think Mr. Masse was really onto one of the cruxes that I see as the concern: new deals being made in Europe and in the United States. We easily could have a creative drain from Canada going into markets where you can actually get paid for creating products and creating works.
The market in Canada isn't working. We have money being made, but it's not being made by musicians. It's not being made by creators. I think we need to look at this really carefully and maybe even accelerate our study to come up with some conclusions so that we can protect the creative class in Canada. We're creating middle-class jobs though this, but now we have either impoverished people or people who are very successful in the industry. There's nothing in between. The market isn't working.
Can I have just a quick comment back from any of you on whether it's the publishers making money and digital servers making money...? The digital companies are making a lot of money and performers are not sharing in the benefit. Where can we go with our study to try to drill into that a bit further?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Music Publishers' Association
For example, music publishers share either 50% or 75%—or any other, but generally it's between 50% and 75%—of the revenues directly to the authors. Of course, they work for the authors. That's what they do. It's normal that they get paid. The problem is that there's not enough money getting into the system. It's not retained, because the digital companies make a lot of money using content. That's the problem. You're right. If we don't get enough copyright protection in Canada, we're at a disadvantage with our other partners.
5 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for all of the testimony here today.
One of the concerns I do have...and there are a lot. There are concerns that musicians aren't able to provide for their families and to have their rights respected. That's an important thing. I'm also quite worried about innovation and how people can generate new content. I've heard anecdotal stories about how someone will actually write a song, publish it on YouTube, and because YouTube has years of content that's added every single day, it's impossible for the platform to hire enough people to be able to watch it. I've actually heard about cases in which, because of these filters, it will suddenly say, “Sorry, you're infringing upon someone else's rights” and take it down. That's new, original content. Obviously the technology isn't there yet. If we look at some of the new rules that are being talked about in Europe, I'm worried that some of these may take down content that is legitimate, in which someone is either reviewing a piece or is generating their own content, whether it is music being played for satire or for criticism, etc.
I do see that there's a balance, but I'd like to hear a little bit more about how you deal with a problem like that, where the technology.... Specifically in Europe, where the requirements are much harder, I'm worried that these content rules will require YouTube-like applications to shut down legitimate innovation or legitimate criticism or whatnot.
Mr. Payette.
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Music Publishers' Association
I think the greatest threat to the Canadian creative economy is not having enough money getting into the system. YouTube already has a technology called a content ID system to identify the rights holders. They have provisions in Europe to protect smaller businesses or educational use of content online, so it's not threatening the innovation side. They just need to remunerate more the content owners. We need to go forward with this. Europe did look at that.
I need to point out that there has been a lot of misinformation around what happened in Europe. Google spent dozens of millions of dollars on lobbying, and there was a lot of misinformation being sent out. The European members of Parliament did look at that and finally accepted it , with a large majority, after they understood what the new proposed text was really going to do. It was largely adopted. I think it was 429 for and 226 against, or something like that. I think Europe does care about freedom of speech and about innovation, but they also care about the rights holders and the creative industry. That's what has been shown.
5 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I'd like to believe that legislators always do the right thing and vote the right way. There is a balance though between trying to establish and continue the rights of the creators with the rights of everyday citizens. Who judges? The thing is, with Google and these automatic filters, we don't know that everyone is getting a fair shake. Some Canadians.... I believe Justin Bieber got his start on YouTube. I hear what you're saying.
On the flip side though, many of these rules in Europe have only come up recently. Is that correct?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Professional Music Publishers' Association
Yes, and I think things are changing and it's time that we change. You mentioned balance. When we look at digital companies and rights holders, according to SOCAN's published numbers, the average songwriter makes $30 a year. That's not enough money. How much does Google or YouTube own? There's a lot of money out there, and it's not going to creators because the balance is not fair.
5 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I would say the two models are very different. One is set up to serve the Internet in a different way, and the other one is meant to serve people who like that kind of music.
I'm going to hand it off to Mr. Lloyd for the remaining time.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
My line of questioning is going to be for you as well, Mr. Payette. You seem to be getting the brunt of the questions today.
We talk about competitiveness issues. Right now we're dealing with NAFTA, and we have taxes and regulations. We're always trying to fight to make Canada a better place to invest. We always think about that as traditional industries, but our cultural sector is also a very important and a growing part of our economy.
Is Canada a competitive place to make music? Is it competitive culturally? If it is not, what do you think could be done to make us more competitive?
Then, Mr. Tacit, perhaps you would have some comments on that.
