Industry committee  Yes, exactly.

Industry committee  No. As I said, there is a value in the punitive aspect of it if there's no legitimate dispute. That's why the wording that I suggested in my written brief was that if there is a legitimate dispute, it wouldn't apply. That would be again for the courts to decide as to whether it was a legitimate dispute.

Industry committee  That's one alternative. The problem is that there is no other regime where you, on the one hand, take a position and the other side essentially is saying, “Okay, I have three to 10 times the amount of power than you have in this dispute”.

Industry committee  Another alternative would be that you wouldn't have to pay the punitive sum if you put up security for the amount that it is said to be. There are various ways to do it. However, in terms of just having this penalty, remember, it's a minimum of three times. The judge can't go below three times.

Industry committee  I think you have to look at other industries in which people have summits behind closed doors. In this kind of forum, nobody is going to be off their talking points. It's just not possible. If you had some kind of a summit behind closed doors with Chatham House rules so nobody's allowed to talk about it, etc., maybe you'd get some real answers, but in this kind of a setting, you are not going to get anybody telling you what's going on and you're not going to get the transparency you're asking for.

Industry committee  I think part of the problem is that there is no incentive to anyone on the user side or on the collective side or on the industry side to actually do anything but their talking points. There really is zero benefit to them, and this is one of the problems in the system. In the Copyright Board system, for example, there is zero incentive for anybody to compromise.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not a university professor, and I certainly don't have the long list that my friends have of publications. I've been out there actually doing this stuff for about 35 years, and that involves just about everything in copyright. You'll see in my covering letter that I've made a list of some of the people I've acted for.