Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to be back in the late show once again. As you know, I have often taken part because we never get good answers to the questions we ask in the House. Question period is aptly named; it certainly is not answer period.
On April 20, I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage a question in the House because he had stated the day before that only ADISQ was in favour of a royalty on MP3s. Everyone knows that an MP3 royalty is not a tax. It is money paid to a collective society that distributes rights, and that money is redistributed to artists according to a complex but fair formula.
Members of all of our households have purchased CDs and made copies for our MP3 players. We used to burn copies on blank CDs to play in our cars, and long before that, we made copies on four-track cassettes. These days, we are making fewer and fewer copies on four-track cassettes and CDs.
The current law, a descendant of the long-ago Bill C-42, recognizes the principle of private copying. We know that people make copies for themselves, and that is why royalties exist. They compensate for the shortfall in copyright revenue that artists might receive. They do not exist to legalize copying for any purpose or in any way whatsoever. Their purpose is not to market copies—anything but. They exist so that consumers do not feel like thieves every time they make a personal copy to listen to on their computer or MP3 player.
Of course we cannot purchase as many original CDs by a single artist as we have devices in our homes. The principle of private copying allows a family that purchases a CD to copy it to various media. Naturally, when the current legislation was passed in 1995, MP3 players did not exist. They do now. We are asking, have asked and will continue to ask the government, in the next few weeks, months and over the course of the year, when discussing Bill C-32, to update the legislative provisions for private copying by ensuring that not only will there be a levy on CDs, not only will there be a levy on cassettes, but there will also be a levy on MP3 players such as iPods. Nothing more, nothing less.
I know that in a few minutes my Conservative colleague will reply that it will cost $75 per device. An amount has never been set but it is obvious that this is a reasonable amount. We pay 29¢ in royalties on all blank cassettes and CDs. That is not a tax. We said it before and we will say it again. It is not in any way a tax. A tax is paid to government but in this case the payment goes to the artists. It is quite simply a royalty paid to artists. We already do this when we purchase an original CD of a musical work because a portion of the money is paid to the artist for copyright.
That was the purpose of my question.
