Good morning.
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Bill C-27 with you from the perspective of Canada's major music labels.
Creating the rules of engagement for AI comes at an important time for the music industry, both here at home and abroad. I want to say, off the top, that our industry is already making use of positive elements of AI as a tool to help artists make more intriguing and interesting music, and using it, again as a tool, to help connect artists, including Canadian artists, with fans all around the world.
Those aspects are, of course, not the central domain of Bill C-27 or the reasons why there needs to be further regulation. I will dedicate the rest of my time to telling you where you can help us most.
As we saw with illegal downloading in the previous generation, the use and ownership of music is a valuable canary in the coal mine. Since then, we have learned the importance of regulating technology for its practical and common use rather than building exceptions into our laws and economic frameworks for corner cases. We've learned that the value of music and other forms of creative expression cannot be sacrificed to the drumbeat of technological revolution, and we've learned that quality, safe and licensed music is as popular with music fans as it is with the artists who are paid when their music is played.
That is why Music Canada is supportive of the efforts made in Bill C-27 regarding the regulation of generative AI.
There are three places where we would encourage you to go even further.
The first involves the need for AI developers to maintain and make available records of the material that was ingested and used for training. Much of the economic framework for the industries that will be affected by the further flourishing of AI requires that everyone understand what the AI is trained on. In order to truly understand that, developers must keep these records.
You will hear from the most excited proponents of unharnessed technology that this request is somewhere between missing the point and being impossible. I ask that the committee think about it in this way: If AI has the potential to cure diseases, design new and better cities for the future, and make travel plans for busy MPs a little more doable, then surely it can generate a spreadsheet or write a bibliography.
The second place the bill can go further is in requiring the labelling of solely AI-generated images and videos, especially in cases where they impersonate an individual. Right now, today, we are standing at the edge of the uncanny valley with AI. Once you learn what to look for, you can understand that the image of the pope in the white puffy jacket is not a photo of the pope, but this technology will never be worse than it is today. Every day it is getting better and, in many ways, more dangerous when it comes to the powerful potential for deception and misinformation. Requiring labelling is an important step towards addressing this.
The third is with respect to the need to address deepfakes and voice clones as a threat and to prepare our legal system so that we can all agree that the production of deepfakes and voice clones without the consent of the cloned person is wrong.
As elected members of Parliament, you know that it takes a lifetime to build the reputation that brings you to this House of Commons. You also know that it takes just one moment for that to come crashing down. Increasingly, this is a fact that people across all professions, livelihoods and ages are coming to grips with in the face of the proliferation of deepfakes and the ease with which they can be produced.
Abacus Data has found that exposure to deepfakes is common and that Canadians are worried about the risks. One out of every two Canadians has mistaken a deepfake for a real video. It's worse for younger Canadians, because 77% have been deceived and 15% say that it happens all the time. Canadians are worried about the effect of deepfakes on artists, political leaders and business leaders, but 79% of Canadians worry about it for themselves too. Almost unanimously, 93%, Canadians agree that there should be a right to prevent these impersonations.
Now is the time to strengthen Bill C-27 and all of our laws to ensure that antiquated analog laws that were once designed to protect celebrities' images from being used against their consent in magazine ads are prepared for the digital realities for everyone today.
Now, some will ask: What about free speech? When it comes to deepfakes, the answer is simple: Putting your words in my mouth is not free speech.
What about parody? Deepfakes aren't parody. They don't mimic with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect. They are done to deceive, misinform and steal one person's character for the advantage of another. We should make clear that in 2024, in a digital setting, that is illegal.
I thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions.