Canadian Heritage committee  I think it's fairness. Canada is seen around the world as this beacon of safety. I think we can do better. I've been working in this business for a long time. I see how other countries behave and how they treat people, and I think the future really is.... It's so difficult today for artists and songwriters to really get paid.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a bigger question, as your colleague was talking about. I'll be honest with you: it was never easy. In the beginning for me it wasn't an easy thing to become recognized. As Daniel mentioned, many authors got kicked out the door. It happened to me here in Canada as well. People were just not interested.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not getting any of the translation in my earpiece. I'm sorry. I'd like to propose that I get my guy to come in and help you guys get this audio equipment worked out.

Canadian Heritage committee  Here we go. Got it. I have you. Thank you.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm sure I could get into giving you many suggestions on what to do for remuneration, particularly with the Internet, but at this stage I think this would be a very big step in the right direction to help composers and authors in Canada to own and control their work and at least have the opportunity to decide if they want to or not going forward.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. The most evident one is obviously the American one, as I described. I think it's a good starting point. Even that platform, as Daniel said, is not the most author-friendly country, but at least it's better than what we have. When I first discovered that this was in existence, I was a little bit puzzled.

Canadian Heritage committee  We have the last page of our proposal. As Daniel has just said, 25 years is plenty of time for copyright to be exploited by an assignee. The second point is that an author or composer can see a further potential financial benefit of their work in their lifetime and reinvest in new creation, and this would happen by having a reversion—it's an incentive.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members. Thank you for having me here today. It's very kind. I've invited Daniel along because Daniel is an expert in copyright law. I have a proposal to make to the Canadian government for an amendment to the Copyright Act. I've been trying for the past 10 years to get a moment like this to be able to tell you about it.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, at this point maybe I'll let Mr. Gervais come in, and then we can go through the reasons for change. I'll give you the floor, Daniel.