Evidence of meeting #127 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 artists.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Legal and Business Affairs, Stingray Digital Group Inc.
I'm not sure I understand. Are we talking about services that would be illegal and not pay the royalty tariffs?
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Anyone can launch an Internet radio station. I can do it on my iPad in 30 seconds.
4:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Legal and Business Affairs, Stingray Digital Group Inc.
There would be a number of problems from the outset. Where did you get the content? Is it duly authorized? Are you paying the applicable fees? There are many things to consider before launching a music service.
4:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Legal and Business Affairs, Stingray Digital Group Inc.
I was asking you the question to know whether we are talking about a service that's illegal or a service that does the right thing.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Legal and Business Affairs, Stingray Digital Group Inc.
I would not be able to tell you. I know that there are many people who use music illegally, from different points of view. Our group offers karaoke services, for example.
There are so many karaoke companies that are not fully licensed or duly licensed, so we know for a fact that people are not using only content that is licensed. In terms of music streaming services, specifically, I wouldn't know.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Fair enough.
Have you taken part in the Copyright Board reform consultations, and do you have any comments on the Copyright Board itself and how it works?
4:20 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Broadcasters
Obviously, there are things that can always be improved. As our colleague was saying, the length of time that the decision takes before it gets out and the retroactive portion that is applied on these tariffs that are usually always increasing is definitely an issue with regard to predictability of payment for the industry. That would certainly be something that we would look for an improvement on.
4:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Legal and Business Affairs, Stingray Digital Group Inc.
In terms of Stingray, we've been only very recently involved with the Copyright Board proceeding. So far it's going well, but our understanding is that the government is also reviewing and might allocate additional resources to the Copyright Board, which will, obviously, help the efficiency there.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Dan Albas Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for taking the time to lend us their expertise here today.
I'd like to start with Ms. Dorval.
Ms. Dorval, you mentioned that many radio stations offer a lot of local content, particularly news, and I just want to reiterate how important that is in many parts of my riding. However, I will tell you that many newspaper editors tell me that they swear that they actually hear the pages of their newspapers turning, oftentimes, in some of those reports. I think that's just an old joke.
I would like to ask a couple of questions along the same lines as MP Lloyd.
The exemption, when it comes to royalties, has existed pretty much as it was first created in 1997. I know that there have been some witnesses who have said that it was meant to be temporary. I understand that your industry has said, “no, this was meant to be permanent”, but even in looking at it when it was put in place in 1997, I don't believe that there's any kind of inflationary clause that goes along with it. At the very least, to get to a proper parity today with purchasing power, it would be about $148.20—that's probably an imprecise calculation. At the very least, would you not agree that there should be an elevation so that this amount is honoured in purchasing power of 1997 with today?
4:20 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Broadcasters
I fully understand. Your point doesn't seem unreasonable, but again I would add that this is going to do very little to help the Canadian artists in our country because 60% of that money is going to flow out of the country.
4:20 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
How can you argue that paying in 1997 dollars, you would have been able to purchase more with that? I think that's a rather inane comment, madam. It should be that if something applies.... We do this with old age security and with many government programs to ensure that they are keeping up with it. Would you not agree that this, at the very least, would be fair and consistent with the act?
4:20 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Broadcasters
Yes, I guess that's why I'm saying that I don't think it's unreasonable. I think it's reasonable, but what I'm saying is that even if you do that, and it's a reasonable increase, very little of the result of that increase will end up in the end with the Canadian artist.
4:20 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I recognize that point, but at the same time, really, $100, whether it be then or now, isn't a lot of money. Again, the idea is that, bit by bit, that loosens its ability to pay for something in today's dollars.
4:25 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Broadcasters
Absolutely.
4:25 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
I would hope that we would find some agreement along those lines.
That being said, I'd like to ask the same question to the National Campus and Community Radio Association. Would that be an issue for your association: to have that at least brought up to a proper level of today?
4:25 p.m.
Regulatory Affairs Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association
It's a difficult position to be in because the campus and community radio sector strongly supports Canadian artists, particularly new and emerging artists, so we don't want to be in a position of taking money away from them. However, at the same time, non-profit stations just don't have any more money. Even if it were eminently fair to provide an increase in payment to those artists, the stations don't have the money to give to them. We're in a difficult position, then, because we have to kind of argue both things at the same time: that the artists should be properly compensated and that we can't afford to pay any more.
4:25 p.m.
Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC
Well, if you can't find some agreement on literally paying dollar for dollar what it was meant to be in 1997, I find that the two positions are pretty far here, Mr. Chair.
I'll go back to the National Campus and Community Radio Association.
In your brief, you referred to a series of tariffs that small community and campus stations have to pay annually. Can you list the tariffs, their purposes and their amounts? Roughly what part of the annual budget for most of your members do you believe that would represent?
4:25 p.m.
Regulatory Affairs Director, National Campus and Community Radio Association
I would have to provide more detail to you in writing on that, given the number of stations we're talking about.
I can tell you what the five tariffs are, though. There is the performing rights tariff to SOCAN, which is at a rate of 1.9% of gross operating costs.
Then there are two tariffs that are paid to Re:Sound. One is for the one that we're talking about under paragraph 68.1(1)(b). Another is a streaming and webcasting tariff that's paid to Re:Sound. I think it would be more effective for me to provide the information about rates in writing.
The remaining two are to CMRRA and SODRAC. Those tariffs are currently the subject of a proceeding under the Copyright Board, so the rates are not resolved going forward. One is for mechanical rights, so for reproduction right of copyrighted material that stations use internally on hard drives, CDs and whatnot. Then the other is for online services. At this point, actually, the campus and community sector does not have a very clear idea of what sorts of rates we're even talking about for the online services because we have only begun to negotiate that.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
If you would like to submit the accurate numbers and information to the clerk, that would be great. Thank you very much.
We're going to move to Mr. Sheehan.
You have five minutes.
September 24th, 2018 / 4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I'd like to echo everyone's comments that it's been great testimony for us to think about. We've heard some different testimony over time. One comment is from artists saying they are making less money than they ever have.
Here today we've heard some testimony that we should just leave things as is. Your suggestion is that if we change things, the international labels will make more money. How so? Explain in a little more detail how that works.
Listening to your testimony, I think Canadian radio does some intangible things. I wonder if you have any information about the exposure that Canadian artists receive through radio. Is there a value to it, whether they're up-and-coming or if they're from a certain genre, that sort of exposure and development?
We heard testimony about the radio starmaker fund, when someone is purchased and whatnot. In particular, do you have any statistics about how our Canadian artists might receive some sort of tangible financial benefit by being exposed on that?
Those are some of the things in my head, if someone would start with that.