Finance committee  Thank you to the Standing Committee on Finance; the chair, Mr. Rajotte; and members for inviting me here today. I'm Graham Henderson and I'm the president of Music Canada, a trade association that represents Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Warner Music Canada. I'

Finance committee  Our our copyright protection extended for 50 years, as opposed to 70, from the date of publication of the recording in question. There was a 20-year difference.

Finance committee  Yes, and there's a distinction between recording artists—or performers—and labels, and then the songwriters. They're not always the same people. Anne Murray, for example, in those early recordings of hers, was not the songwriter. She was the performer. The songwriter of those ear

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. That was an excellent presentation, by the way. Thank you, Mr. Trudel. My name is Graham Henderson, and I'm the President and CEO of Music Canada, and we're passionate advocates for those who create music and for the music itself. I'm very pleased to see the herita

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. You could think back to 1999, when the music industry in Canada was at its peak. Today, it's a mere shell of itself. While there have been a couple of years of modest growth, there was a period of sustained decline. If you take inflation into account, we're only back to 50%

Canadian Heritage committee  You said it, instead of subsidizing major corporations.

Canadian Heritage committee  The songwriters had always had it. It was the performers who didn't have it, and that's when it kicked in for the performers.

Canadian Heritage committee  We didn't have any input at all. This was a last-minute amendment that was added at 12 seconds to midnight so there was no real input. The rationale was that small, individual radio stations—mom-and-pop, as they were described—would be crippled by the addition of having to pay ro

Canadian Heritage committee  That's correct.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think we have to have a proper way to measure this. Instead of treating everybody the same—whether you're Bell Media or a small station in Saskatoon that is independently owned—we have to find a way to discriminate between the two. I don't think it's that difficult. I think you

Canadian Heritage committee  I do, but not with me today. We are prepared to put a proposal before the committee that would do that.

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure, that's another exemption. The best example I've heard came from performing artist Miranda Mulholland, who I believe is very familiar to this committee. She has written to you in the past. The example she gives is, as a performer—not as a songwriter—she performed on Republ

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, the language is very simple. It's removing three or four words.

Canadian Heritage committee  A song has two copyrights. It has the copyright that comes from the songwriter and it has the copyright from the performer. They're very different. It creates these two separate rights. They're not always the same person. Once upon a time, in fact, it was rare that they were the

Canadian Heritage committee  Those are commercial arrangements. I was an artist lawyer for almost 15 years. In the case of the singer-songwriter, you would sign a record contract. The record contract would spell out royalty provisions, copyright, the amount of money that would flow to the artist, and what th