Thank you very much, Madam Chair and honourable members, for this opportunity. I'm here today with Casey Chisick of Cassels, who is external legal counsel both to Music Publishers Canada and to my companies.
I have had the pleasure of owning and running a Canadian-owned independent music publishing business for almost two decades. I'm here to talk to you about the need to fully implement copyright term extension in accordance with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement immediately, completely and with no conditions. In doing so, small and medium-sized businesses in the music publishing sector and our songwriting partners are able to continue innovating, growing and exporting songs to the world.
Canadian music publishing is a $329-million industry, which grows every year because of innovative entrepreneurs who help create value from songs. In today's digital and globally connected age, songs, music and culture have no boundaries, allowing many Canadian songwriters to achieve international success because of the scale of opportunity outside our country.
The market in Canada is simply too small for songwriters and publishers to succeed only within our borders, so music publishers work hard and make investments to help songwriters expand and grow into international markets. In fact, two-thirds of music publishers' revenue now comes from foreign sources, which is a dramatic change from 2005, when only a quarter of their revenue was from these same foreign sources.
The key to dealing with changes in technology has been our ability to expand globally. Music publishers use their relationships in other countries, built over many years, to create opportunities for songwriters to succeed.
Music publishing is about championing a songwriter and a song through the lifetime of the writer's career and the song's copyright. We take a long-term perspective, and we work a lot behind the scenes to create value. We are the songwriter's partner. We not only make financial investments in songwriters; we also invest time and leverage our relationships to help a songwriter's career evolve.
This means matching people such as songwriter Jeen O'Brien with partners in lucrative markets like Japan to co-write singles that are released by other artists or used in TV, movies, commercials or video games. It means arranging co-writing opportunities for Dan Davidson in London, England, and China and financing radio promotion. Those efforts led to a top 20 Canadian country radio hit.
It means taking a risk to sign emerging songwriter Tom Probizanski, who moved to Toronto from Thunder Bay. We invested in him so he could go to Los Angeles and Denmark to co-write. He released an EP under the name of “Zanski” and we paid for his blog and playlisting promotion so that he was featured in Clash Magazine, EARMILK and various Spotify playlists.
We were able to take these risks and invest that money in Jeen, Dan and Tom only because we could rely on the income of several songs for which my companies hold the copyright. These efforts were made possible by the value that we were able to create from songs such as Imagine by John Lennon; What a Wonderful World; My Way; Y.M.C.A.; Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones; Skinnamarink by Sharon, Lois and Bram; and even the theme for The Simpsons.
This brings us to today. I would like to thank the government for agreeing in CUSMA to extend the term of copyright in works by 20 years. It is critical, though, that this be implemented completely, immediately and with no conditions, rather than waiting the 30 months that is allowable under CUSMA. Bill C-4 would extend the term of copyright for a few works: anonymous works, audiovisual works and so on. It would add an extra five years to the term of protection for performances and sound recordings, which was already extended in 2015, a welcome development to be sure.
However, the bill would not finish the job. It would not extend the term of protection for musical compositions known as songs. On behalf of Music Publishers Canada and the songwriters and composers I work with, I urge the committee members to amend Bill C-4 to align Canada with its global trading partners by extending the term of copyright protection for all musical, literary, dramatic and artistic works right now, instead of using the 30-month transition period.
Why is this important? Many works will fall into the public domain in the next 30 months. That will affect creators' and publishers' ability to reinvest in the Canadian economy.
As I mentioned, many music publishing companies are small and medium-sized businesses that rely on steady income from hit songs to develop new talent. For a small business like mine—