Town Hall and Public Hearings on Copyright – Toronto

Date: August 27, 2009 7:00 p.m.

Location: Toronto, Ontario

Principals:
Host: Hon. Tony Clement, Minister of Industry;
Moderator: Diane LeBreton
Webcast liaison: Nicole Frenette, Director, Policy, Planning and Research, Copyright Policy, Canadian Heritage.

Subject:
Industry Minister Tony Clement hosts a town hall meeting, as part of the Government of Canada's national consultation on copyright.

See also: comments submitted online during the event

Transcript

Diane LeBreton: Different reasons may have prompted us to gather at this Toronto town hall meeting on the modernization of Canadian copyright law. Some of us may have come to listen and learn, others to present a particular reality, and still others a prescription. Whatever our reasons for coming into this session, I sincerely hope that we will all leave with at least one common result and that is that we are each a little bit better informed about the past, present and possibly future in a relationship of Canada's copyright provisions with our lives, our creativity, our economy and our culture.

I welcome you. My name is Diane LeBreton and I'm the animator. My role is to facilitate the participation of the greatest number of commentators at this meeting. This is a major challenge in view of the fact that there are more than 300 people here, some 480 who've registered for the Webcast…

…and adjacent overflow room. So it's great to see this enthusiasm for this topic. Now no one doubts for one second that all of you have something very important to contribute to this consultation process, and we all believe that everyone who wishes to contribute ought to do so. So right off the bat I want to mention that anyone whose comments are not voiced during this gathering, to please register them via the Web at Copyright Consultations. As for this meeting, the speakers list is being determined by a lottery. This system was reviewed with those here in the hall prior to the start of the Webcast. I would now ask for those first numbers to appear so that our speakers can proceed to the microphone. If you have one of those numbers and wish to speak, please go immediately to the microphone and wait for my signal.

For our Webcast participants, your comments will be treated in the same way now as they were during the Montreal town hall meeting. They will be read by my colleague, Nicole, here who will have the floor following every fourth speaker. All speakers will be allocated three minutes to address us. Ideally, some will take less time so that more speakers can come forward. With that said, I hope to have used up as much time as I will need to moderate our proceedings. Thanks to all of you here in the room who will help make that case, particularly the speakers who know to limit themselves to three minutes and the audience here in the room who knows to respect each selected commentator's right to speak and be heard. I will now give the floor to our host for the evening, the Minister of Industry and Member of Parliament for Parry Sound-Muskoka, the Hon. Tony Clement.

Applause

Hon. Tony Clement: Thank you. Diane, thank you very much and I just want to bring my official greetings and welcome to everybody who is here in person or those who are online as well for this second town hall. My colleague, the Hon. James Moore, held a town hall meeting in Montreal recently and he and I together and separately have held over eight round table discussions throughout the country from coast to coast and those have been very helpful as well.

In addition to that, of course we've had over… I believe we're clocking in at 3,000 submissions that have been filed online and I dare say since we still have a few days to go until September 13th — that's the deadline — there will be a few more along the way. All of this is extremely helpful to James and myself and our respective departments as we grapple with the issues associated with copyright reform. I don't have to tell anybody in this room of course that a lot has changed and a lot still changes practically every day or week in the fields where copyright holds sway. Indeed, when you look at where we are now compared to where we were in the last go-round on a Copyright Bill, Bill C–61, things have even changed since that short span of time has elapsed, and indeed if you and I were having a conversation even a couple of years ago where we were talking about tweeting this or twittering that, people would look with very quizzical looks on their face, but now of course that's part of the lexicon of social networking. It just shows you that things change by the speed of light.

What we're trying to do here is obviously come up with copyright reform that stands the test of time, that is of course respectful of the various interests and points of view that have been expressed and will be expressed amongst our fellow Canadians and of course will help us deal not only with the creative economy of tomorrow, but of course help us with economic growth and prosperity for ourselves and our fellow Canadians. So with that I'm going to stop my remarks because this isn't an opportunity for me to make a speech, it's for you to have your say and I'll be paying very, very close attention. Thank you very much for being here.

Diane LeBreton Thank you, Minister.

Jamie Kidd: Hello. My name is Jamie Kidd. I've been a musician for over half my life primarily as a base player and now as a producer recording with several rock funk jazz bands and now doing electronic music. In fact, I have an album coming out from a Berlin-based label next month and, funny enough, it actually won't be marketed in Canada because sales here just aren't high enough.

My biggest concern overall is the overall devaluing of music that has taken place over the past 10 years. Right now we have a culture of young people, especially children under 16, who have never paid for a piece of music in their life. They have no concept that a recorded song has value. As a musician, I find it infuriating that some people suggest musicians should simply make a living from touring, from playing live. What about the record producers, the studio engineers, the studio musicians, the people who do artwork? As a jazz musician, I can tell you that studio recording gigs are essential to making a living. What if I'm incapable of touring or when I grow older or incapable just because of health reasons? What if I recorded some incredible albums? Do I not have a right to be compensated for my hard work?

And to those who assume copyright impedes creativity, well I have worked with artists in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Spain and elsewhere where copyright reform has taken place and I can tell you that I've never heard this complaint from musicians. If there were rules in place to help reinstate the value of music in our culture, then we as artists would again be compensated for our time and effort. This in turn would allow more freedom and time to create and allow ourselves to grow as artists. How can you expect Canadian artists and musicians to grow, create and compete internationally if we are only allowed to spend at most a few hours a day fostering our talent? The simple answer is we won't or we will move elsewhere as many of my colleagues have. If we don't support Canadian culture and stand up for its value, it will disappear forever. Thank you.

Applause

Martha Rans: I'm honored to speak following a musician who speaks with such passion and conviction of his work. My name is Martha Rans. I'm a lawyer in private practice from Vancouver, BC. I am the Legal Director of the Artists Legal Outreach which is a project providing some legal advice to artists in all disciplines out of the Alliance for Arts and Culture in BC. We represent over 350 members from all the disciplines, large, medium and small creators and rights organizations. In the past three years, we've provided advice and led workshops for artists, several hundred in the province, the largest per-capita number of Canadians who identify as working artists.

We ask you to return to Vancouver and hold a town hall in Vancouver before September 13th. We ask you as well to hold a town hall that engages directly with individual creators in all disciplines, dancers, musicians, writers, poets, the many, many thousands and thousands and thousands who are not online who are sitting in their studios who don't know that this is going on. For the 30,000 that have hits on the Website that I heard referred to, there are dozens and dozens, thousands, tens of thousands upon those tens of thousands more who are interested and have a role to play, and they aren't necessarily represented by collective societies, industries, unions and guilds. You have yet to hear from the many unrepresented in this country I would suggest, having reviewed much of what has been written on that Website which is difficult to navigate — note to the technical folks.

I would say that copyright is not well understood by the public or artists. It is not understood in terms of its implications for the musicians as they go through their careers. It is not understood by students who are trying to access material who think they are paying for it through their tuition. It is not necessarily understood by software engineers who think their code is the same as sampling a piece of music. I would suggest that what we need to do, whatever the reforms are, Mr. Minister, we need to put some funding and resources together to ensure that there's public legal education around copyright and what it means. I would suggest, Mr. Minister, that those funds be directed to arts and culture organizations on the grassroots level locally, so in Vancouver, in Winnipeg, in the Northwest Territories, in Nunavut so that indigenous artists can have a role to play in how they understand copyright and what it means.

I'm getting there. We need to… and part of that process will enable us as a community to engage around best practices of what works and what doesn't and why we need reform and what reform might mean to us. This I would suggest would address much of the answers to the five questions. So again, come to Vancouver, the Alliance for Arts and Culture would welcome you. Thank you.

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Diane LeBreton I didn't put my foot down, so to speak, because I don't see anyone else at a microphone. So 16 seconds left. Mine says something different.

Martha Rans: And I would suggest that we need to be looking at the public domain and a larger understanding of the cultural comments and what that means rather than focusing strictly speaking on innovation and creation.

Diane LeBreton All right.

Martha Rans: Thank you.

Diane LeBreton Thank you. Thank you very much.

Applause

Diane LeBreton All right. If I don't see 160 or 503 I'll go to the… oh, I'm terribly sorry. Come right to the mic as soon as you see your number. Thank you.

Sophie Milman: Hi, everyone. My name is Sophie Milman. I'm a local jazz artist and I would like to talk about extending the private copying levy on devices such as iPods.

Applause

Sophie Milman: Thank you. As an up and coming artist in Canada I face a multitude of challenges in order to create music. I have to incur the exorbitant costs of touring, no one gives me a break on accommodations and hotels, I have to support my band in a way that's fair and helps them meet their own financial obligations, I have to record music. My label helps me with this but the label itself is a small indie and is therefore constantly strapped for cash. I need to incur the costs of promoting myself and my music, Websites are expensive and so are publicists. The music I make has value I believe, otherwise people wouldn't be buying it.

People listen to it and people want to make copies of it. I think that's great. But I deserve a fair compensation for the work that I do. I receive compensation if you make a copy of my music onto a CD or an audio cassette, but I get nothing if you copy my song onto an iPod. How can one copy have value and the other not?

I did some research and would like to put things into perspective for you. Over the last four years, approximately $12,000 was disbursed to my label by the CPCC (Canadian Private Copying Collective), thanks to the levy on blank media just for my records. For my ND label, that can mean the difference between supporting a tour or not, funding a recording or not, and for many artists that kind of money can determine whether they can pay for the clothes for their kids, whether they can pay rent or put food on the table. Even though I'm a relatively successful Canadian jazz musician, if I weren't married I couldn't afford to pay rent. Making music, supporting it and touring is very expensive no matter how you do it, whether you fly or you take a bus, and just like everyone else out there who is doing honest work that brings value to people's lives, and all of us agree that music does that, I believe that I deserve to be paid.

And that's exactly what royalties are. They're not compensation for lost sales, but they're earned income from my work. This is my livelihood and the private copying levy is part of how I continue to make music. I can only do that if the private copying levy is extended to cover digital audio recorders which are rapidly becoming the most popular medium for people to enjoy music. This is my work and I deserve fair compensation when it is used. I truly don't think that a one-time fee on something like an iPod onto which thousands of songs can be stored and then erased and then thousands of others can be stored, I don't think that's too much to ask. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Is participant number 503 passing? I will assume so. So we'll go to the Net. Nicole.

Nicole Frenette: So the first comment is from Richard from Brampton. Distributors use digital rights management to police users, but DRM software often it sells (ph) itself without the user's permission, does not provide a way to uninstall itself when the protected content is removed, can leave consumers vulnerable to system crashes and viruses and even can control how many times a person can install or use content he has legally purchased. In addition, if the content provider goes out of business, the content becomes useless. What protection will the Bill offer consumers from overzealous DRMs?

Applause

Nicole Frenette: We have another comment from John from Toronto. University of Toronto Press is Canada's oldest and largest publisher of scholarly books and journals and publishes over 165 titles annually. The model for scholarly publishers relies upon a combination of world-renowned authors, the ability to sell books to niche markets, and government support. Clear copyright legislation that reflects the digital age is required now. We hope the legislation continues to foster the creativity of authors such as Marshall McLuhan by giving right holders the right to monetize their content if they so choose. Failure to do so will not only stifle creativity, it will put the livelihood of a great many Canadians at risk.

Applause

Tariq Muinuddin: My name is Tariq Muinuddin. I'm a law student and I'm here just as a general individual. I'd just like to say that in the coming legislation I don't think any kind of levy on media or Internet service would be a good idea. In my experience I have never paid for the CD levy that has already been in place. It's not an intentional thing, but any store I've gone to has not put any surcharge on it, hasn't been place on it (ph), and were a fee to be placed on an iPod and were it say something substantial, I would have no doubt whatsoever that it would be just brought in from abroad, purchased on say Amazon.com and shipped to Canada which would negate the purpose of the levy and make it meaningless.

Similarly for Internet access, I don't believe that a levy would again be useful. The vast majority I'd say of uses on the Internet are not copyright infringement and so to take a levy on that and then distribute it to people who have no relation to the activity in question, there is no connection between myself sending an e-mail to someone or checking up on the news and paying someone else for their musical works when I'm not consuming any of it. And so taking that in the form of a levy is just another form of taxation that we as consumers don't need and would not appreciate. Thank you.

Applause

Dan Glover: My name is Dan Glover. I'm a lawyer at McCarthy Tétrault in Toronto, but I'm not just a lawyer. I've lived all of my life loving copyright works, supporting artists. I'm a user of copyright. I'm a creator of copyright and I make my living by advising those who create copyrights, but also those who seek to use them judiciously. My wife is an editor who works with great passion and very little pay to bring books into the world. Artists and the people who support them live on the edge. It is not fair in my view to hear those who do not have their life and their heart's work at stake to say casually and to end the debate, information just wants to be free.

In my work, we see one of the greatest problems as being the lack of a clear inducement or vicarious liability doctrine in Canada. In short, this doctrine allows courts to take action if they see behind the small users who download without enough thought for authors or artists, an entity that is out there and reaping the benefits of infringement, but not taking an active part in them. In my view, this is a big gap in Canadian law and it would be great if it could be addressed in upcoming reform.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton Number 62 please to the microphone. If number 70 is out there and wants to speak, please proceed to the microphone now.

Steve Kane: Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Minister. My name is Steve Kane. I'm the President of Warner Music Canada. I've spent most of my adult life working in the music business and having the honor and the privilege of assisting artists do what they do and that is take their creations and spread them not only across Canada but around the world. It's a privilege and an honor that I take and my staff takes very seriously and that we are proud to say that we are part of building artists' careers.

When I began my tenure as President of Warner Music Canada, we had about 180 employees. We currently have 85. I've had to lay off people, I've had to cut back on marketing and spending on artists in mid-career. I've had to pass on artists because I have limited budgets and limited resources. As the first gentleman who spoke said, many of these artists have gone elsewhere. We are not creating a level playing field for creators.

I've come to many town halls and spoken to many politicians and bureaucrats about what it is we're looking for. What we're looking for is the ability to make choice. Many artists choose not to monetize their creations. Many artists don't avail themselves of services like companies that I work for. The ones who do deserve to have that choice respected. If one artist decides that they can be a hobbyist and make music in their basement, post it up online or even with a recording contract, an agreement with their record label, that they decide they're going to give away their music, that's fantastic, that's their choice. What I'm asking for is the same respect being given to the artists that I work with who want to be paid, who want to make a living, who want to be contributors, taxpayers and a valuable member of our society.

I don't view this entire discussion about a 99–cent song, about a single song. I also look at it as the future of the Canadian economy, the kind of country I want my kids to grow up in and the kind of opportunities they have. I grew up in an industrial manufacturing town. I've watched those jobs disappear, they're not coming back. Don't let the same happen to my industry. Thank you for listening.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Number 70. Is number 70 in the room? So number is passing, so we will go to the Web. Number 116 if you wish to speak, please go to the microphone. Thank you.

Nicole Frenette: (inaudible) Independent research has clearly shown in economic terms a cycle of creative destruction in the IP industries. The old system and model of IP is obsolete as it relates to the digital revolution. We need to provide new revenue streams for our creative talent and monetizing the peer-to-peer networks is a great part of the solution to this problem. Will the government put forth an understanding of the process of creative destruction, stop looking at other countries who do not have a complete understanding of this process and how it relates to IP and put forth a true Canadian approach that will allow our creative talent to emerge far ahead in the global marketplace.

There's also a comment from Karen from Burlington. How will the new copyright legislation balance the needs of the creators and the needs of the research community? So it's a question. And finally, a comment from Sylvana. As a Canadian who values how Canada is viewed on the world stage, I'm appalled that Canada was recently placed on the U.S. piracy list. Along with countries such as China, India, Russia, Canada has been identified as a country that does not sufficiently protect copyrighted material from widespread piracy. We require strong copyright laws to protect not only Canadian intellectual property but the intellectual property of our international partners. If we do not adequately protect intellectual property, how do we expect foreign businesses to invest and do business in Canada? The continued inaction of our government has allowed a culture of piracy to thrive. File sharing, ripping and burning music is now the norm. We need a copyright regime to show our youth that creativity is a valued asset and not something that can be just borrowed, ripped or burned for free. I implore the Canadian government to protect our cultural assets by implementing copying that values such assets.

Applause

Thiago Kurtz: Hi. My name is Thiago Kurtz and I work at Sony Music. I have to agree wholeheartedly with the last speaker and I also think that Jamie Kidd, the first speaker, I don't think he could have put in better perspective the way I feel as someone who works in the recorded music industry in terms of what we strive to do and the value that we place on our artists and how what impacts them impacts us in the same way.

I have a lot of friends who work in the industry. I have a lot of friends who are musicians, who are performers. I have family members who are performers and everyone who I speak to about this issue feels very passionately about it. It's not an abstract legal concept, it is not something that doesn't affect people's day-to-day lives. It affects my life, it affects my colleagues' lives, it affects my brother's life and his family's life. He's a performing musician. He has been for years. He's 37 years old and he's been doing it like by the sweat of his back and 200 days on the road and he's committed to it because he's passionate about it, as are all of we.

It struck me the other day that it has been more than 10 years since Napster started. It's more than 10 years since Napster was launched and it's been more than 10 years since Canada signed the WIPO Treaty. I mean those two things happened around the same time and WIPO was kind of foreshadowing Napster. We knew it was coming. It had… WIPO was there and put forth these principles that would have prevented so many of the negative impacts of file sharing and what they've had on the industries, the cultural industries of Canada which are not just music, it's film, it's TV, it's dance, it's poetry as one former speaker said. I mean this is something that Canada more than 10 years ago committed to enact into domestic law and has failed to do so today despite several attempts.

What I hope is that this consultation process, and I applaud you for doing it, will lead to a copyright regime that respects the work of artists and the people who support them. That's record labels, that's film producers, that's production companies. I mean there is a huge number of us who work in this industry and in the sector broadly and we're part of the Canadian economy and we are creating things that impact… that present Canada to the world. It's not just domestic, it's our international reputation and it's fundamentally important to a huge number of Canadians. Thank you.

Applause

Paul Spurgeon: My name is Paul Spurgeon and I represent SOCAN. That's the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. Now for those who don't know about SOCAN, we represent composers, lyricists, songwriters and music publishers and the same group from around the world, Canadian and international. We've done so for over 80 years in this country.

On behalf of our over 35,000 active Canadian members and members of the affiliated similar societies from around the world, we collectively administer a specific part of a copyright, a very important part of a copyright. The copyright that we administer, the part of the copyright we administer is the performing right in music and lyrics. In other words, the musical work. The performing right is that part of the copyright that gives owners of musical works the sole right to perform in public to broadcast, to communicate their works or to authorize others to do so in return for royalty payments. These performing right royalties are important to SOCAN members because they are the risk takers who don't get paid up front for creating songs. They rely on the downstream money, they rely on the money they receive in the form of royalties if their song is actually performed or communicated by others whether it's on the radio or on television as part of a movie or television program.

Now the amount of copyright royalties our members receive is determined by the Copyright Board of Canada. This quasi-judicial tribunal balances the interests of both creators and users and allows interested parties the opportunity to be heard at very transparent public hearings, both copyright owners and copyright users.

Now my first comment on copyright reform is that the Government of Canada must not set up unwarranted exceptions or exemptions or limitations or in any way otherwise limit the copyright royalties paid when musical works are performed or communicated. If you deprive SOCAN's members of copyright royalties, you are basically asking over 35,000 Canadian individuals, individual risk takers, to take those risks and work for nothing and that's not realistic and it's not fair to those people.

Minister, my last point this evening is that your officials must ensure that any changes to Canada's Copyright Act are carefully drafted and are crystal clear. If you don't get the wording right, you will generate confusion and you will clearly generate costly litigation. Now SOCAN appreciates this opportunity to speak on behalf of Canadian music creators. We will work closely with your officials and provide you with a more detailed written submission shortly. Thank you very much.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton Yes.

Leslie Weir: Good evening. I'm Leslie Weir, the University Librarian from the University of Ottawa and I'm here representing the Ontario Council of University Libraries. We represent the 21 universities in Ontario and we serve approximately 500,000 faculty, students and researchers here in the Province. OCUL is very encouraged by the attention that the government is bringing to the challenging task of enabling Canadian copyright legislation for the 21st century. We feel that a fair balance must be struck in any new copyright legislation between the copyright holders and their right for fair compensation and the public good. University libraries depend on the concept of fair dealing and other exceptions in the Copyright Act in order to serve the students and researchers who depend upon access to and use of copyright materials for the learning, discovery and innovation that benefits all of our society.

Fair dealing, we have the unanimous Supreme Court Decision of CCH in 2004 that identified fair dealing as a right that must be interpreted broadly. The ability of users of copyright materials to exercise their fair dealing must not be compromised in any new legislation. There are two important ways that the enjoyment of fair dealing could be compromised — through digital locks also called technological measures, and through the threat of statutory damages.

For digital locks, they can prevent users from interacting with copyright materials in ways that are perfectly legal. Copyright law must not make it illegal to circumvent a digital lock in order to use a copyrighted material for use that does not infringe copyright. WIPO treaty obligations, in WIPO treaty obligations it's sufficient that copyright law afford protection to digital locks only to penalize breaking of digital locks for infringing purposes. Libraries should also be able to migrate materials to new formats when we are approaching obsolescence. If we actually wait for obsolescence to happen, then we won't have the equipment to be able to read, access and migrate the materials that are at threat of loss.

We would also like to suggest that to be able to serve Canadians with disabilities it's extremely important to be able to provide access in formats that support their needs. Finally, we'd like to say that damages where there is statutory damages are a chilling effect on the enjoyment of the user rights and so we would like to suggest that in fact it would be more appropriate for people to be liable to just straight damages if they are not purposefully trying to infringe on copyright. Thank you very much.

Applause

Diane LeBreton That was speaker number 2. If speaker 136 does not wish to speak, we will go to the Web. Nicole?

Nicole Frenette: So Craig from Toronto. I think there's a simple question here. What are the rights of Canadian citizens? In Canada we don't even have the kind of fair use protection for criticism, parity and research that our American friends take for granted. So why should we endure the erosion of what little rights Canadian citizens already have and the demolition of the public domain to go along with it? Yes, Canadians value their artists and value their works tremendously. But they also value the rights that they're entitled to as Canadian citizens and they don't want to see their grandmothers and teenagers sued into poverty or sent to jail in order to protect the industry's business models.

There's another comment from Charlotte. The non-profit volunteer-based campus and community radio sector is one place where you can hear emerging artists on the airwaves. But with a multiplication of tariffs from different copyright collectives and different uses, for example radio, streaming, podcasting, archiving, these non-profit stations are having problems paying to broadcast these artists using new technologies. The sector is trying to give exposure to emerging artists and doesn't have the revenue available to pay as much to tariffs as big commercial broadcasters. It's harder to sell ads on a station playing smaller and unknown artists. But they can't keep up with all the tariffs, some sort of caps are needed. In this case, the copyright tariff system is then not helping emerging artists get the exposure they need to become more successful and get the royalties they deserve.

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Number 14. Pass? No, there we are. Thank you. Number 137 and 12, if you'd like to go to the microphone.

Paul Vet: Hi. My name is Paul Vet. I'm a software developer. I'm just going to be really brief here. Basically, like I think a lot of people are painting this debate as a debate between two extremes and really it's not that everybody wants to either abolish copyright or have infinite copyright, I think we're all looking for a spot in the middle. So it would be nice to kind of drop some of the rhetoric and focus on the nuances because it's quite complicated, and there are a number of issues that I think are important and sort of guidelines that I think we should go from. And first of all, I think we need to not legislate TPMs at all, we need to totally not put them in the laws. I mean industry is already abandoning TPMs.

They simply do not work and there's no reason to protect them. The Americans have shown us that TPMs will have all sorts of consequences that we can't anticipate, garage door opener companies suing each other, things like that, and what's the benefit? There is none. And I say that as a software developer. I develop software for Blackberries and so copyright affects me but I don't think we should be enshrining TPMs in law. It's just too risky.

Second of all, I'd like to support notice and notice rather than notice and takedown. I don't think that's really being debated too much here. And so what I was saying at the start was it's not two extremes. We need to recognize that everybody is a creator in Canada now, right? I mean I've been tweeting as this goes along. That stuff is all copyright me. And people who have been reading it are my I guess consumers, and likewise even people in more… like industries like music where like say a rock musician. A rock musician I mean ultimately is building on blues music, right? And blues musicians ultimately built on each other. And so to say that they're strictly creators I think is misleading because they're actually consumers of the music that came before them.

I forget the artist but an old blues artist told the story. He had three different stories for how he wrote a particular song. One is that he heard someone else play it. One is that he remembers composing it himself while working on his car. And so you can't simplify the act of creation. It builds on previous creation. And finally I think, or also I think we need to simplify copyright laws. It's terribly confusing, right? And as I mentioned, everybody is now involved. Everybody is copying, everybody is creating, and having complex laws doesn't help, right? Do I know if a particular act is infringing? I don't. I tried to make a parody video during the last election and I wasn't sure if it was legal because I was going to use clips from Seinfeld. Is that legal in Canada? Probably not. And do we really want to stifle political speech? I don't think so.

And finally, I'd like to say not to retroactive term extensions or even future looking term extensions. You can't encourage dead artists to create more works. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton All right. 137. Go ahead. Go ahead, number 12. We'll get 137 up.

Rob Bolton: Hi. My name is Rob Bolton and I work at Warner Music Canada and I'll be brief because some of the comments made earlier I agree with completely about the right of choice of artists. I've worked in all aspects of the music industry I should point out, both with artists as a journalist and I've also worked in technology startups as well, so companies that actually fought the record labels to bring new digital innovations to Canada. And I can say that what we have in this country is truly a lawless society and it's very difficult to build legitimate businesses here, and you'll hear a lot of people say and advocates of peer-to-peer technology that this creates this utopia of sampling and you can discover artists and people will spend more money on music. That simply isn't true.

While yes, I get that, I understand that if you can sample music you'll buy more music, but it exists. You can go to an artist's Website, you can play songs there, you can go to their My Space page and sample songs. We truly live in a utopia of music fans being able to sample music anywhere legitimately on artist chosen Websites. And then if you like it you can buy it. What peer to peer does is it removes that choice. I was listening to the Montreal town hall and I thought it was quite funny. Someone gave the rather ludicrous example or a metaphor of well if I come into his house and steal his TV, that's theft. But if I take a track from his computer via peer to peer it's not theft because he still has that track. He is not inconvenienced in any way. Well that's true, that person is not inconvenienced, it's not theft from them. But it is theft from the artist who created that music. They are expecting compensation in exchange for that piece of music, and that was taken away from them. That choice was taken away by the use of peer to peer.

All we're asking is that choice is given to the artist. Yes, the point was made earlier, some artists choose to give away their music for free. That's great. Plenty of… in fact, almost every artist now gives away one or two tracks as a free MP3 as a way of sampling, usually streaming many more on their Website. It truly is amazing how much you can sample now and you don't need to take it from that artist, and all they ask is to be compensated in exchange for that. Basically getting music for free on the Internet, it's the choice of the artists if they want to make it. It is not the consumer's privilege and it is certainly not their right. Thank you.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton All right. Go ahead.

Suzanne Hirtenfeld: Hi. My name is Suzanne Hirtenfeld. I'm a genetics technology student and I've been keeping track of this through the Facebook group, fair copyright for Canada. And what I wanted to say is the last Bill that was passed, Bill C–61, I thought that it was a very ineffective Bill. I thought it was largely modeled off of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and I really don't like that Act in the States. I think it's been ineffective, and it's caused exorbitant lawsuits against American citizens. You know, somebody downloads a few songs and then they're sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars by the record labels. So while I think that the artists need to be compensated, absolutely, but I think that the consumers also have to be protected as well in the laws that we make. Yes, that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton All right. Thank you. To Nicole.

Nicole Frenette: Yes. So we have a comment from Toronto. Copyright law is so complex and unintuitive that it is very hard for anyone to follow it. Copyright reform should simplify the regime and make it acceptable to users and creators. But this town hall seems to reflect mostly one perspective.

There's also a comment, another comment from Toronto. As a musician and a commercial user of music, Canada requires a legitimate marketplace for the consumption of music. Many online music providers such as Amazon, Rhapsody are fearful of bringing their services to Canada due to the lack of a copyright regime. How can they compete with free? Future copyright laws must create rules and regulations to foster a legitimate marketplace.

Applause

Steve Blair: My name is Steve Blair. I work for Warner Music Canada. My job is to go out and sign artists, Canadian artists actually, and try to facilitate their visions and hopefully sell some music at the same time. When I first started this job 10 years ago, 11 years ago now, our roster was 22 artists and thriving. It's now about 12 and most of that has to do with the cutbacks that we've had, budgets have cut back and the staff has cut back. And working with artists on a daily basis I certainly know that about 20% of them can probably make a living off of it. The other 80% do it because they love it and have to do it and people deserve to hear their music and they're trying to make a living and that choice is being taken away from them.

Part of my job too is to try to solicit other people around the world to release our Canadian product and it's becoming more and more difficult for us to develop stories here in Canada, success stories, and a lot of that has to do with lack of sales, and if I don't have a good story or a good sales story, it becomes difficult to convince somebody in the U.K. or the United States or Germany to take a risk on the product. It's risky as it is and taking a risk on something that you may not have a complete emotional attachment to is very difficult to do.

I got up here because I feel a lot of artists are afraid to speak for themselves. They've chosen to try to sell their music but they're very afraid to tell people that they don't like downloading. And I think the people that work in the music business have an obligation to do that. As my boss said earlier, we take this as a privilege and none of us take it lightly. Thanks.

Applause

Diane LeBreton I take it you're number 81?

Brian Isaac: Hi. I couldn't hear you over the clapping but I'll assume I can go ahead.

Diane LeBreton Go ahead.

Brian Isaac: Okay. My name is Brian Isaac. I'm the Chairman of the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network. I'm also a lawyer with the firm of Smart and Bigger which is an intellectual property boutique. So I make my living enforcing intellectual property including copyright. The Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Organization Network is an organization that is directed to fighting IP crime, so we're talking about people who are commercializing stolen intellectual property including copyright.

I've got two basic points that I want to make and both deal with effective enforcement. But as a starting point I want to say that we recognize that CACN and I think everyone in Canada kind of recognizes the need for balance. We need to promote dissemination of information and works over the Internet and otherwise. We need to protect privacy because that's a legitimate interest. We need to promote user access and use of works. But we also have to have the ability to enforce. We can't leave enforcement out of the balancing act because you can give all the rights you want but if you can't enforce them they're not worth much.

So my first point, contrary to what one of the fellows said about no one arguing against notice and notice and for notice and takedown, in our opinion notice and notice does not give the correct balance. There's too much protection for privacy rights and not enough concern for enforcement. Notice and takedown in our opinion gives a better balance. If a person wants to object to a work being taken down, they have to ID themselves, they have to identify themselves and they can into the fray with the rights holder if it's appropriate. If they don't object, their privacy is likely protected unless the activity is such that the rights holder is willing to spend the dollars, because rights holders have limited dollars too, to get to court in order to get disclosure of the identify of the person like that case that we just heard about in New York City etc.

I don't know that DMCA has the correct balance. We may need some tinkering and I think Canada can tinker and we can try to get a correct balance. But in our opinion the notice and takedown is a better starting point.

My second point is that commercial piracy needs to be effectively addressed. People who are stealing copyrights and selling them, it's a serious issue and it has to be addressed as a serious issue and a serious crime. Enforcement has to be cost-effective and deterrent. We're currently in a regime where some issues can be easily addressed. For instance, the exclusion of copyright offenses from proceeds of crime legislation should be removed. There's no reason for that. We should also add copyright provisions to the Criminal Code to overcome some of the jurisdictional issues that we're constantly facing. We could go even further like some other countries and put in a ticketing system or something like that to make it more effective, but we have to do something.

The bottom line is that Canada needs to get the right balance for Canada. But whatever we do it's important to change our system from one where pirates view enforcement as a minor cost of doing business. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you. 500, 138, 22. Web. There's someone making his way out the door. Let's go to…

Nicole Frenette: So we have a comment from Andrew from Montreal. So the public lending right today delivers $10 million in payments to over 16,000 Canadian authors. The issue statistics of public libraries are analyzed and the $10 million pie is apportioned to each applicant. The amount given out might be very small but the principle is sound. The U.K. distributes almost five times the amount per author. The same principle can be used to fund authors, musicians, video artists and so on by analyzing downloads instead of annual issued statistics. Invest in the jewels of our society called public libraries and administer the fund distribution from there.

We also have a comment from Omar from Toronto. If the Clinton Administration passed legislation recommended in its intellectual property in the national information infrastructure white paper, it would essentially criminalize the vast majority of digital content users. The Canadian public wants assurances that whatever direction copyright laws go, we won't have an approach where citizens are made an example of. Cultural norms have changed and we should change with it.

Applause

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Nicole Frenette: And a final one from Carolyn from Richmond Hill. Currently, the length of time it takes to obtain permissions from musical or movie works prevents many uses in the classroom environment. What will the government include in the forthcoming legislation to help educational institutions obtain the required permissions to use works legally in the classroom in a timely manner?

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Sasha Isaacksz: Hello. My name is Sasha Isaacksz and I work for AVLA, a copyright collective, and I have two careers, a daytime career and an evening career. And in my day career I am a lawyer working in the recording industry representing rights holders. And from that perspective as someone familiar with various international copyright regimes, I'm only asking the government to bring Canada's copyright laws up to international standards, and that's all.

Now in my evening career I am a DJ and like thousands of other Canadian DJs, we rely on specialized digital content in order to run our businesses. In my evening career then I'm a content user and as a user I want choice, except in Canada right now there's not a lot of choice for this segment. There's a couple of different digital specialty services available, and you compare that situation to the U.S. or parts of Europe where these new digital companies are thriving, and new ones are popping up all the time. And the simple reason for this is that companies are not willing to invest in a country where their specialized digital content will not be protected by law.

So my hope as both a rights holder and a content user is that the government will recognize that outdated copyright laws are actually discouraging legitimate new digital businesses from setting up shop in Canada and copyright reform that will create an environment to encourage digital businesses and new digital distribution models is needed now. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton 119. Come on down.

Don Hogarth: Thank you. Hi. My name is Don Hogarth and I'm from Toronto. I'm a communications consultant with several clients in the entertainment industries. I've seen the negative impact run away unauthorized downloading on my clients. More importantly, I see the impact on people, the people who work at those client businesses. I'm talking about the staffs who come to work and face a layoff notice. And I'm talking about the artists, the performers who can't earn a living, many of them can't even get a start, as we've heard from the folks at Warner who spoke already.

I'm also worried about the impact on Canadian culture. When sales are lost to downloading, money that would otherwise be recycled back into the system that would support artists, that would support Canadian music or movies or TV or all the cultural goods that we enjoy and I think take great pride in, that money is not recycled, it's lost, and for too many of the creators of tomorrow's Canadian culture they're stopped cold in their tracks.

Reform opponents often frame the debate as one between big business and people. But if you look at the cultural industries in this country, yes, there are some big businesses but most of them in fact are Canadian owned, 100% Canadian owned are small businesses, in many cases very struggling businesses. And behind them all are the people who work in them of whatever size of business they're in and those people in turn support the artists and the creators, but that work runs into a wall of unauthorized downloading through an outdated copyright regime.

The legal uncertainty that currently exists in this country leads too many Canadians to believe that it's okay to go to file sharing sites to get anything they can acquire digitally, or in other words to call a spade a spade, to take other people's property without their permission so long as it's over the Internet. So Canada must modernize its copyright regime immediately to send a clear signal to Canadians about what is acceptable and what is not on the Internet.

Mr. Clement, please step beyond the rhetoric, step beyond the myths and there are many myths out there right now that are floated by opponents of modernizing Canada's copyright regime. We hear about a police state, we hear about locking down creativity and culture, teachers who can't teach, and all of our major trading partners that have implemented the WIPO Treaties have not found that to be the case. They have… their regimes are very successful, their copyright regimes. So ignore… the evidence doesn't stack up for all these myths, so I urge you to ignore the myths.

The principles outlined by the government on introducing Bill C–61 capture the essence of the reforms we do need. So please let's inscribe those principles into law now. Let's inscribe them under the guidance of the WIPO Treaties, a framework that is proven to work successfully among all of our trading partners. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Victoria Shepherd: My name is Victoria Shepherd and I work for the AVLA. We represent producers and rights holders and we do our best to make sure that their work is monetized when other people use it. I've spent my entire professional career working for the music industry. I'm horrified, I'm heartbroken by the number of jobs that have been lost, by the number of my colleagues who don't have jobs anymore, by the number of artists who don't have recording deals, who can't make their living doing what they love.

You're going to receive a great deal of opposition to reform from people who don't want to pay for music. Supposedly reform will inhibit innovation, restrict consumer choice, invade privacy and erode creativity. There's no evidence to support this. We do however have evidence of the decline of the sales of music, of the number of jobs that have been lost, of the number of artists who can't support themselves and of the reduced contribution the music industry now makes to the GDP.

The Canadian government spent millions of dollars bailing out the auto industry. The intellectual property sector is not asking for a bailout. We're asking that our laws be brought up to date with those in the rest of the developed world. We're asking that rights holders have the choice to determine whether their property is monetized or whether it's not. Reforming our Copyright Act so that it's in line with international trading partners will result in new international investment in our culture, in technology, the creation of jobs, the creation of wonderful new cultural music from artists and the increased contribution to our GDP. Thank you.

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton 103, 120. There we are.

Alexis Chubb: Hi. My name is Alexis Chubb and I work in the music industry and both my parents work as a playwright and as a story editor, so they work in intellectual property as well. So it's not just about music, it's about theater, it's about writing, it's about anything that's available that can be traded. In the absence of modern copyright rules, file sharing has undermined the ability of creators and creating industries to earn a living. So many new and up and coming artists need to have jobs to support their music making or their writing or their film making or any of the artistic and cultural things that are so important in Canada to who we think we are. So it has to be come a hobby that they do outside of their regular working hours. So if you're working an eight-hour day job, you only have four or five hours after hours to work on your music or your writing or anything else that's important and that helps us identify who we are as Canadians.

WIPO was 10 years ago and we signed that agreement and we haven't ratified it and it's been tried and true in Europe and how much longer do we have to wait for something in Canada to bring us up to par? Thank you.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton Thank you. So we will… we have a frozen screen on the Web, so we will go to 72 or 21, 27. All right. Yes, we have someone making her way to the microphone. If I might have your number please so that we can… just call it out. 21. Thank you.

Janis Nixon: My name is Janis Nixon and I'm from Universal Music Canada. Let me start by saying that I love music. I give thanks to every artist that has ever written a song that has made its way into being the inspiration and the sound track to my life. I work for Universal Music Canada and I've been there for nine years. I love what I do. My colleagues and I are driven to build artists' careers and each and every one of us absolutely loves music. As a member of the electorate, a taxpayer and as a Canadian, I truly believe that the rights of song writers, entertainers and music companies must be protected. I've also seen how piracy in Canada and illbegotten copyright laws has destroyed artists' careers and individual livelihoods.

I've watched too many of my esteemed colleagues who have bills to pay and families to support lose their jobs as the Canadian music industry impacted by file sharing, Peer to Peer and Bit to sites (ph) declines (ph). Look, I can't play a note. I couldn't write a song to save my life. But I get great pleasure in listening to and appreciating music created by someone else. These creators deserve to have their work protected by modern copyright laws if they choose. These creators deserve to be fairly compensated by me, by each and every one of you in this room and watching online. Please, I implore you to update our copyright laws. Let's be fair and be just. Let's ensure we're building a solid base so that my colleagues and every artist, musician, song writer, software architect, film maker, video game developer can continue to produce greatness within our country and be fairly compensated for it. I ask this of each and every one of you in this room, not because I can, because it's right.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Go ahead.

Jonathan Dry: Hi. My name is Jonathan Dry (ph). I'm a mechanical designer from Mississauga. I don't work in the entertainment industry.

Applause

Jonathan Dry: So I believe we are in this situation because of eternal (ph) copyright laws. I'll start and say that copyright is meant to foster a broad and diverse culture of creation and derivative works in a country, and we don't have that now. In the past, the eternal copyright laws have created a vacuum, they've pulled away the culture of the people from the general populace. I grew up in the 1990s. That was how it was then. In its place was placed a load of mass-produced rubbish music. You could turn on the TV any time. It's pretty much the same nowadays and this damages the youth, it takes away a formative decade, their teenage years. Instead of creating a culture of production and of personal achievement, we've given self-destructive teenage rebellion.

Now if we're going to get rid of this the problem with it is we put all the power to create culture into the hands of a few corporations through eternal copyright. They just fortify (ph) it up and that's the end of it. If we're going to reform the system… three minutes, okay. As far as the public domain goes, we need shorter copyright terms. Thank you. Okay, as far as the public domain goes…

Diane LeBreton My apologies.

Jonathan Dry: …we need shorter copyright terms. This book is published in Mississauga, Ontario. It's by Robert E. Howard. His work is falling into the public domain. He's most known as the creator of Conan the Barbarian. If you like books about screaming barbarians and monsters, great stuff. There's a publishing boom going on with his work right now. Delray is publishing his stuff with annotations, scholarship, letters, all sorts of other stuff because everything else, the original stories, are now in the public domain and guys like these guys in Mississauga are publishing it. It's being driven by the entrance of his work into the public domain.

What we need is shorter copyright terms. This is going to drive innovation. Canada could attract a large number of publishers and artists from all over the world if we reduce copyright terms. We are sitting on a goldmine, people, that's being withheld from the general public by a small amount of copyright holders. If we were to loosen that up, there would be a cultural explosion and an industrial explosion in that industry. And I would ask the Conservative Government to go back to your entrepreneurial roots. We have a small publisher in Mississauga making money from the public domain. It's also driving big ones in the States. No interruptions please, okay? We need to go back and see these… allow these entrepreneurial companies, these small startups to grow big, to exist because right now they can't. They are having their culture withheld, their music, their art, their books from the general public. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Rob Lanteigne: My name is Rob Lanteigne. I'm the Vice President, University Affairs with the Brock University Students Union. As students, we are looking for a fair balance, just as everyone else here is today, between users' rights and creators' rights because even though we're users today we are the creators of tomorrow. What we strive for is a system that does not inhibit the transfer of knowledge, the pursuit of ideas or the quest for information. The courts have interpreted a broad definition of fair dealing which we do support, and we feel that the best method of including this in the next copyright Bill would be to make the Section 29 rights explanatory rather than exhaustive by including the words "such as". Our institutions, our universities are very risk-averse and a complex series of exemptions would only lead to situations where our universities continue to restrict the flow of information for fear of being sued.

The second point I want to make is with respect to digital learning. The traditional four-walled classroom is eroding very rapidly. I've had seminars which are online only where professors deliver video Podcasts, lecture slides and course readings in digital format. I spent an entire semester working entirely with materials off my computer and Blackberry without printing a single page as I was working out in the field. To treat these digital delivery methods as Bill C–61 did, forcing materials to be printed or destroyed within a very short time, ignores the utility of these materials for continuous learning and places a burden on administrators, librarians and instructors and also characterizes the student end users as kind of assumed criminals who if they could would be selling Podcasts out of their trenchcoat at the bus stop. That's really not the reality of this world today. Rather, we should be designing our copyright laws to be adding flexibility to information provision and expand, not contract, our ability to share and use information for research and learning.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on digital locks. If the intended use of a material is for a non-infringement purpose, it should not be criminalized simply because DRM was inserted. If a student needs a large text format of a document or a blind student needs a text-to-speech reader, this may require breaking a digital lock in order to convert formats. One of my best friends this year is taking Computer Science 403 at Brock which is a cryptography course. How is a student supposed to learn about codes and algorithms if they're not allowed to legally break these things inside the classroom? Thank you very much.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton Thank you. Now we'll go to the Web. Nicole.

Nicole Frenette: We have a comment from Leslie Ellen. Any Copyright Act will be written in legislative language. Is there some way the government could commit to funding for copyright education in Canada when a new law is proposed and passed? This will help all who use, create and distribute content.

There's also a comment from Joel from Fredericton. Users of Linux operating systems are excluded from watching DVDs on their computers and are further prevented from legally breaking the inefficient encrypton (ph) to use their legally purchased materials. The coming copyright law needs to ensure that all people are entitled to have full access to legally purchased materials and be allowed to break any digital locks if the distributors refuse to provide ways for content to work using our chosen format on our chosen device.

Applause

Nicole Frenette: And a final comment from Michael from Thunder Bay. The Canadian Freelance Union is a newly-formed group of independent media workers. Our very existence depends on our ability to get paid for the works we produce. Any expansion of fair dealing with impact us negatively. As independent creators, we also face an increasingly difficult business climate where our former partners, the publishers, broadcaster and producers, are extracting more and more rights from us and paying less and less. We need reforms that will strengthen our ability to negotiate fair deals for our copyrights. Make some economic rights non-transferable and remove the right to waive moral rights. These are just some ways an amended Copyright Act could support those who actually create.

Denis McGrath: Thanks for the opportunity, Mr. Minister and everyone here. My name is Denis McGrath. I'm a professional television writer and producer. I've written episodes of the Border, Stargate Universe and my own show Across River to Motor City. I also blog about the Canadian industry to 10,000 readers per week. In addition to speaking myself today, I also serve on the Council of the Writers Guild of Canada, so I'm here speaking on behalf of 2,000 screen writers from coast to coast.

Now as an artist, I want my work to be seen by as many people as possible and once upon a time that meant seeing it on TV or in the movie theater. Now it's iPods, it's DVRs, cell phones, computers, game consoles. I'm pretty sure they're going to have something on a toaster by Christmas and that's the way it's going to go.

We can't be King Canute trying to hold back the sea, and we have to recognize that things have changed fundamentally. Consumer behavior has changed, technology has changed the way people use things. Suing our consumers is not going to be the answer. What we feel is the answer…

Applause

Denis McGrath: …is we just want… as artists, we don't have any problems with consumer behavior, we just want to get paid and we think that that's the important thing for the copyright holders. When sound recording became common use, a levy for blank cassettes and blank media was introduced and it's worked so well and the precedent has worked so well that we had a guy here today who doesn't realize he's been paying it.

Applause

Denis McGrath: So this is collective licensing and this is we think a forward-thinking less American version, a maybe made-in-Canada solution that lines up with other places around the world that might actually offer a decent way to protect both copyright and to not criminalize or annoy our consumers with digital locks and all these other things that get in the way. More importantly, when you're writing a law it also allows you to write a law that doesn't lock you into technology, it talks about it can be flexible because what you're talking about is the aims. You're not locking into technology. So 10 years from now we'll be talking about things that don't… technologies that don't exist anymore.

The point is that I'm a freelancer and I'm an entrepreneur and I'm a speculator. My income this year is going to be half what it was last year. We're the ones that are taking the risks. And all we want to do is to get fair compensation for what we put out there. In terms of things like fair dealing too, this is a personal thing I really wanted to speak on, I think there are a lot of aspects of fair dealing that seem good but the main thing about fair dealing is that I think we should entrench some aspect of parody and satire and allowing that to be part of our regime. Thanks for the opportunity and please, technology-neutral. Thanks.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Sharon Ramsahai: My name is Sharon Ramsahai and I work in Canada's music industry, specifically some (ph) music. Not only am I speaking to this issue from that point of view, I'm speaking on behalf of friends and family that are creators and producers of musical compositions. They're finding the situation in Canada very discouraging to a point where it's either they give up their passion or, if able, leave the country to try to succeed. If that is the general consensus, Canada will be forfeiting some very talented people, and should success be found elsewhere they will not be claiming that success as Canadians.

I believe that users should be able to legally purchase and consume material on a platform of choice in a way that ensures that royalties flow through to the creators and owners of such material. This is the time for Canada to not only play catch-up regarding copyright legislation, but to show itself as a leading country by setting a precedent that other countries look to which promotes a thriving culture. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Laine Pond: Hi. My name is Laine Pond and I work in the music industry as well. I've worked in it in various forms for 19 years, so I've seen a lot, seen a lot come and go. I've seen friends lose jobs. The best man at my wedding lost his job shortly after my wedding and he has to this day has still said it's the best job I ever had and it's the best job I ever lost. And it's not because it was an easy job, he worked his butt off and he was good at it. The budgets in our industry now are such that people are losing their jobs left and right and center and I'll stop there because it's been said a few times already. What we do however is work for our artists. Make no mistake, they don't work for us, we work for them and we love every minute doing it. And anybody who thinks otherwise is sadly mistaken.

I'd like to talk about one artist, an acquaintance of mine. Everybody in this room if I said his name would know his name. He's had international artists record his songs, he's had international artists work with him, he's had other international artists and critical acclaim from around the world and he can't afford to buy a house. He can't afford to buy a house because he's a singer/song writer. He's not a big touring artist. He's not a big merchandise artist. People aren't buying his T-shirts. It's not how he makes his money. He makes his money, some of it's touring, most of it is through music sales. He can't afford it. Every one of you would know his name if I said it but I'm not going to.

I'd like to talk about some of the stuff we talked about with choice. The other thing missing in the peer to peer discussion today in my opinion is people feel that they have the right to share, and I feel file sharing is the wrong term. What you're talking about is massive distribution. If I share a piece of music with a friend of mine, hand it to him, have him have a listen to it, that's sharing. If I put it on my PC and have it shared for the world for massive distribution, that's not sharing, you're distributing content that you do not have the right to distribute, the label, the artist does.

Applause

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Laine Pond: In closing, and I hope I can get this in and I hope I can do this well enough. My partner is a PhD candidate with York University and she spends a significant amount of time working through, using copyright materials in her classroom. I don't perceive to understand all the ins and outs but I know it's very difficult for her. So in closing, with some of the other academic people who've been in this discussion, we need fair copyright. As much as the copyrights do need to be protected, we do need it to be fair and equitable so people can use it for research and the other things that have been mentioned earlier. So please. Thank you.

Applause

Marty Simon: Hello, Minister. My name is Marty Simon. I'm a royalty manager which is a company that I created here in Toronto but we manage the royalties for some of the world's greatest composers of film and television music. As a creator myself, I wanted to just communicate with you about being the creator. I think that SOCAN mentioned something about being risk takers and we certainly are. On the top of the iceberg let's say you can see Bon Jovi and Celine Dion and all of the huge success that we read about every week, but underneath that iceberg, underneath it is many, many thousands, tens of thousands of creators that are trying their best at doing something.

And when they finally get to a point where there's a market that likes them and respects them enough to pay them some money and they get royalties, it's a miracle and they're raising families on these miracles and they also respect it because I remember my first cheque and many other people that I've spoken to that got their very first royalty cheque, what do they do? They turned around and they bought an $80 guitar or a $250 little tape machine so they could make more songs. They are constantly by nature reinvesting in their own careers. And this royalty system that is in place is a miracle for them.

Where did it come from? As we look at this dialogue we can see how complicated it can become, but really if you look back in the 1920s we were faced with something equally horrible, and it was when the artist was really controlling the music and the money with his feet. He walked into a room like this and he played his guitar, people paid money. That was the 1920s. All of a sudden electricity was born, the microphone happened, amplifiers, all of a sudden a thousand more people came in and it was transmitted live to London and all over London a million people could hear his music. And he said wait a minute, am I getting paid for those million people? And they said no, no, you've got the 200 people here in the room and that's who's buying the tickets.

Well from those challenges came the common sense of licensing and of getting the broadcasters who were making those radio broadcasts pay some money back to the person who created that music. So I think that we also have an opportunity to put some common sense at work. I love the dialogue about balance because I do think we need a balance in this dialogue, but the solutions are there and we really hope that you're taking as much as you can from this dialogue and I thank you very time you write a note down, I get really excited that you're in playing this stuff. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thanks. All right. Thank you. To the Web.

Nicole Frenette: A comment from Todd from Toronto. As author Cory Doctorow said, bits will never get harder to copy. Canada must embrace change, embrace copying, sharing, remixing and creating while exploring new avenues for ensuring artists have the opportunity to earn a living. Continued attempts to restrict copying will only make children and grandmothers criminals.

Applause

Nicole Frenette: Also a comment from Elena from Calgary. I'm a Canadian visual artist. I am not associated with the music industry nor do I work in digital media. Despite this, changes to the copyright law could have significant impact on my work. In particular, I'm concerned that the ability to make social commentary through the use of appropriation will be made illegal if this is not protected under a new law. As an example, many of the works of Andy Warhol would not be permitted if this ability is not protected. I understand the concern of many artists and copyright holders about compensation for the use of their work. Works that incorporate appropriation however do not compete with the appropriated material nor does the value of the work of art derive from the value of its subject. Works that include appropriation communicate new thoughts and ideas in order to share them with those who interact with the artwork. While not all artists use appropriation, it is inconceivable that in Canada we would advocate restricting or banning these forms of expression.

Paul Dutton: My name is Paul Dutton. I'm from Toronto. I'm an independent artist, poet and novelist, essayist and a musician. My livelihood depends on copyright protection of the works I create and on appropriate compensation for their use by others. It is vital to the survival and ongoing productivity of creators such as me that the government enacts copyright laws that ensure proper protection of copyright and fair compensation for creative work.

I'm going to be saying some things that have already been said but I think they need to be repeated often. I can't tell you how to do it, but I have some very strong feelings about what should be done, sort of motherhood issues maybe but nonetheless. I often choose to donate my work in various ways but I should be assured the prerogative of deciding what is given away and what is sold. When someone reproduces and distributes my work for free and without my consent, it undermines my professional viability.

At the same time, while copyright protection is vital, the principle of fair usage needs to be reasserted, reinforced and legislatively safeguarded. This is essential to maintaining a robust climate for research, education, criticism and intellectual development. And finally, my last point, it is imperative that corporate monopolistic self-interests not be served as it is for instance in the case of what's come to be known as the Mickey Mouse effect — every time the Disney Corporation's copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to run out, and release the mouse into the public domain, powerful corporate lobbyists manage to get U.S. copyright terms extended yet further after the death of the original copyright holder. The interests of the overall culture need to be served by fair and sensible legislative measures regarding public domain. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton 163. Pass? Please.

Nicole Desouza: Hello. My name is Nicole Desouza. I am from Centennial College and I'm one of the members of the library staff. One of my job, well part of my job, I am a copyright contact for the college faculty and part of my job is to chase copyright permissions for faculty members to allow for better service to their students, one of the things being digitizing articles and things like that to put on the Web system for students, and these things are actually monitored by who's actually registered in the courses. So there are some limitations on who can actually access them which is good in terms of copyright.

One of the things that we were trying to do for this faculty member was to digitize certain texts for her class that's going to be offered in the new year, but unfortunately came back saying that it was far too expensive for them to do that and offer this service to students. Another situation I had was for students who wanted to create with faculty members a non-profit audio Website who found it or are still trying to do it but are overwhelmed by the amount of record keeping that they have to do to allow for this non-profit learning experience.

As an educational representative, what we ask is that there is a need in this new legislation for the wording to be clear to allow for students as well as faculty and everyone to understand and feel confident that they're not infringing on copyright as well as allow for educational institutions to offer a dynamic learning environment to students.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton 11.

Ferne Downey: Thank you. Hello. My name is Ferne Downey. I'm an actor and I'm the President of ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, Radio Artists. As an audio visual performer, I am frankly thrilled by the opportunities that grow daily in the constantly expanding digital world. It's getting easier for Canadian audiences and people all around the world to see and enjoy the work we make. However, I also need to make a living. Current laws need to be modernized to include a balance between creators, consumers and makers. That's no surprise to anybody here today.

As performers, we need to protect the integrity of our image and be paid for our work and as Canadians we should be able to enjoy movies and music when and where we want. To achieve copyright balance, Canada needs to implement the WIPO performances and phonograms copyright and internet treaties. We need to provide performers a full range of economic and moral rights in sound recordings and establish the same rights for audio visual performers in Canadian law and at WIPO. The fact is audio visual artists, including actors like myself, currently have next to no rights in Canadian copyright law. And yes, we do need to update and expand the private copying regime to devices like iPods to cover all types of format and time shifting.

What we are advocating is a made-in-Canada solution that takes lessons from what has worked and hasn't worked around the world and tailors them to suit our needs. This old approach of sitting in separate corners has failed and served no one. The only way we are going to move forward is to talk about what we do agree upon and find our consensus. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton To the Web.

Nicole Frenette: Darryl from Orangeville, Ontario. My name is Darryl Newdorf. Much of the confusion regarding the future of copyright has to deal with how to monetize what was once a physical product and is now living in the non-physical realm of cyberspace. I believe that there is a solution to the dilemma that involves monetizing P to P downloading rather than demonizing it. So in the perspective of creating a Bill that withstands the test of time, I would like to quote Google's CEO, Eric Schmit: Let's give credit to the people who foresaw the Internet, opened it up, designed it in a way that did not have significant choke points, made it be possible for random people, including 24-year-olds in a dorm, enter and create something new. I would submit that we should heed the words of the Internet's greatest success story and build legislation that fits into the round hold of the Internet rather than right it. Thank you for listening.

Applause

Nicole Frenette: Nina from Toronto: I just can't get my head around the fact that this issue has been drawn out for so long. Are we a Canadian cliché wherein we just don't value our worth? Other countries are leading the charge on this and have numerous success stories with copyright reform for the artist, consumer and business partners. This government should be ashamed at letting this slide for so long. Once again, Canadians just not sticking up for themselves or their worth.

Applause

Nicole Frenette: And a final one from Neil from Toronto. When will our government recognize that this is not only an intellectual property issue but also a job issue? I work in the music industry but I'm an average Canadian citizen, not a monolithic corporation that some would have you believes are the only ones concerned with this issue. I work hard, I pay taxes, I want the best for my family and spend money in my community and I am tired of seeing people I know lose their jobs. Companies that I have worked with have to close their doors while my government sits passively by and lets it happen. In this time of corporate bailouts, etc., we employees of the industry, but more importantly citizens of Canada, are looking for nothing further than protection from theft, plain and simple.

Applause

Unidentified: Thank you very much. I appreciate this opportunity to have my say and thank you, Minister, for attending. It's very much in vogue these days to talk about the importance of having a creative economy in the 21st century and your department indeed does that. And Canada is well positioned to be a leader in the field. But what's often overlooked is that professional artists are at the very heart of the creative economy. Their work generates substantial economic activity as others get involved in bringing their artistic vision to audiences. The Conference Board estimates that the economic footprint of the Canadian cultural sector in 2007 was $84.6 billion. But Canadian artists are being left behind by our society and by our governments.

While 82% of them have a post-secondary degree compared to 44% of the overall population, their average income is 20% lower than the average Canadian earns. For economic reasons, 80% of artists, professional artists, must work outside the artistic profession in order to survive. The artistic income can also fluctuate significantly from year to year which imposes an unfair tax burden. Canadian artists don't qualify for Unemployment Insurance if they're out of work and they don't have pension plans. That's why protection of their intellectual property through copyright is so important to Canadian artists. And you've heard it eloquently from some artists here tonight, and I would ask you particularly, Minister, to listen to those individual artists.

In French, copyright law is referred to as loi sur le droit d'auteur (ph) or authors' rights, a much more appropriate term in my view. So my message is simply this: As we look to modernize Canada's copyright laws, let's make sure that the fundamental right of artists to receive a fair economic return for their creations is not just an ancillary issue, but the central focus of the exercise.

Applause

Unidentified: I want to add one final point because it was only the previous speaker that brought up what is perhaps the single biggest gap in Canadian copyright law and that is the fact that performers who work in film, television and new media do not have copyright protection at the moment. And I certainly hope that that gap will be filled in the current round. Thank you.

Applause

Bill Freeman: My name is Bill Freeman. I'm a writer, a professional writer, and I'm the Chair of a group called The Creators Copyright Coalition, a coalition made up of 18 different creator groups ranging from ACTRA to the Writers Union to visual artists. And I want to make one thing very clear, that we are very keen, every artist in this country is very keen that their work is accessed and is read. I hope very much my books are read just as film makers want their films to be read or seen. But we need a sort of economic climate that provides us with more protection and better protection. The real key is artists need to be paid.

Now most people here would agree with that, but I think that they need to listen to the statistics that were just read out. Many of my friends and colleagues unfortunately suffer from very low incomes. These are writers. I hang out with writers mainly. These are writers, some of whom are very well known in this country and they are just not doing well. The Canadian government has provided very strong support for publishers and many of the artists are the ones that are really out there suffering and, Minister, I hope this is an issue that you and your colleagues can look at because it frankly is embarrassing. We have built a literary community, just to speak about my own community, that is the envy of the world and many of the writers that are the very basis of that community are just not doing very well. And I think that needs to be rectified.

I wanted to talk about a couple of fairly specific issues, one being fair dealing. Fair dealing, there are demands, requests from many people to expand fair dealing. Fair dealing will be a disaster for creators and it should… you need to know this. It will mean a significant loss of income. It's mainly the education sector that is advocating this and if they want to bring the type of fair dealing that they envisage, it will mean major, major loss of income. This country has developed I might say a whole system of licensing agencies. We've heard from SOCAN tonight, Access Copyright is another one that many of you will be aware of, but there are well over 20 of these agencies. We need to strengthen these agencies and bring true collective licensing to this country. Finally, we don't want to see 13-year-old girls being sued. It's time for it's really notice and takedown. Thank you very much.

Applause

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Diane LeBreton Thank you. 73. Web.

Nicole Frenette: A comment from Yasmina from Toronto. I would like to reiterate the importance of allowing format changes in particular for individuals with disabilities, not just students. Also I'd like to know if I buy a copy of a movie for example, will I be allowed to change the format to watch it on my iPod?

Also a comment from Amy from Toronto. As a member of the film and television industry, I'm concerned about throttling by Internet service providers with regards to peer to peer file sharing. While I'm gravely concerned about the mass piracy of my work, I'm also concerned that the throttling of Internet technology will impede the only form of distribution for independent films, the Internet. Will there be a fair compromise so that my works will be protected but still able to use online methods of distribution from my home ISP?

Applause

Nicole Frenette: And Doreen from Matlock. I sincerely hope that the findings of these consults are adhered to. Several years ago a colleague and I made a presentation to the Senate Committee that was investigating convergence of media ownership. It seems that nothing positive resulted from the results of these consults. We said then and I will say now as a freelance writer, I need to be paid for each and every use of my work. Media moguls such as Canwest think it is fair that they pay writers a meager fee of $250 or slightly more for a full-page travel article with pics that they will in turn run in any other newspapers that they see fit. Can this possibly be fair? I think and know not. Please ensure that publishers treat creators fairly and that our work is not widely distributed without fair compensation to the creator.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you.

Daniel Sire: Hello. My name is Daniel Sire (ph). Thank you, Hon. Tony Clement, for having us. Hello, music industry. I'm a student. Hello, entertainment industry I guess. It's nice for everyone to be here. I'm a student at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and it's kind of too bad copyright is so complex because there's a lot of young people like me who aren't able to come out because they just don't know enough about it or aren't interested. So I want to try and speak on their behalf I guess in some way if they agree with what I say.

Specifically, I want better access to material, any copyrighted material, but I think all artists deserve the compensation, absolutely. Typically, when government sets policy, they're very balanced, they're very neutral. I think you guys need to continue that and specifically for peer to peer and other sharing technologies. It's just another technology. Keep the playing field open and let the market decide. I know you're going to do a very good job of that. But file sharing, it improves my life and it's going to continue. It's not really going to stop.

I believe that copying and sharing is not stealing. Like it's not true that if I take something and then it's not theirs, it's okay, It's still not great for artists when someone takes something without compensation, so it's kind of a lose-lose. Artists don't get compensated and kind of my generation feels that it's okay to take and copy copyrighted material. So we need to try and find a balance where it's a win-win. So hopefully you guys can do that, and I think the best solution to this is through tariffs and levies on blank media. It should be like extended to hard drives and all flash drives and everything blank. It would be a great extension to this. I think it should be looked at or considered at least that possibly putting a tariff or a tax on bandwidth would be good because despite the cost to consumers…

Applause

Daniel Sire: Despite the cost to consumers, compensating artists is important. And please set a bold precedent because… don't do anything that I guess the Americans are doing. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you. I'm looking for 132. Pass. 160… yes, sir, please.

Unidentified: Hi. I am a writer, song writer and a programmer. I'm also a recent graduate of the University of Toronto. So copyright is obviously important to me for a variety of reasons. One of the things that I find curious about a lot of the speakers so far today is a lot of people keep talking about a right to get paid without acknowledging where that right comes from in the first place and why that right is there. And the whole point of copyright is to incentivize creation for the public. Copyright is a set of social relations between the public and between creators.

Second, a lot of the talk about balance too I think misses the point a little bit. It's important that things are balanced between different interests but ultimately if copyright is done right it should be beneficial to all in the sense that a good economic transaction leaves both sides better off. So in other words, if you properly incent… if you provide an incentive to creators to create, then the public benefits from that creation. So into some more specifics, into specifics and then I'll get back to the general idea.

So first of all, I don't think it's been said yet but I think Crown copyright should be abolished. That incentive…

Applause

Unidentified: That incentive is called an election. Second, regarding the public domain, copyright term should not be extended and we don't need to apply CPR to graves. And I think the term should be at best left at what it is now. We need more flexible fair dealing. It's not a disaster for creators, otherwise our American friends wouldn't create anything. They have fair use that allows for parody and satire. We can at least do the same. We need a technologically-neutral approach. I am a Linux user. If you ban circumvention based on the tools rather than based on actually infringing copyright, I would not be able to watch DVDs, etc. And peer to peer file sharing can be used to infringe copyright. It can also be used by song writers like Brad Sucks (ph) in Ottawa who releases all of his material under a free license and leverages peer to peer networks for it to be shared.

Essentially there's… Copyright shouldn't provide a specific business model. It should provide tools that creators can use to incentivize them to create but if the public can't use that creation there's no point in copyrighting it in the first place. Thank you.

Applause

Diane LeBreton 124. Pass to the Web please.

Nicole Frenette: Mary says: A balanced response is needed for online media distribution that allows content developers to get compensated for their work, but also caters to the realities of Canadians. One of the greatest things about the Internet is the fact that all content is easily accessible and widely distributed. Canadians have recognized the great benefits of such a decentralized distributive model. A monetization scheme, and there are models for such schemes out there, needs to be put in place that will preserve this amazing distribution model and at the same time ensure that artists receive compensation. The government needs to take the lead in this by installing a monetization scheme of some sort perhaps similar to the private copy tariff. Thank you.

Taylor from Peterborough: How do people give their art to the attention it deserves to make it the best it can be if they're working far too hard at part-time jobs they need to take on to keep their lives afloat? Does this inspire creativity or stagnated (ph)? That's not necessarily a rhetorical question, but I believe more income needs to come in to artists. The digital realm definitely holds part of the key. A little bit goes a long way.

And James from Oakville: I keep hearing that file sharing is damaging sales, but where is the proof of this? Much is downloaded but would people have consumed that media if it hadn't been free in the first place?

Diane LeBreton Over here.

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Erna Paris: Thank you very much. My name is Erna Paris. I'm an author and I'm here today as Chair of the Writers Union of Canada. The Writers Union of Canada has membership of approximately 1,800 book writers living in every region of the country. Our members earn their living by writing books. They are the basis of our flowering flourishing publishing industry that reflects the culture of Canada but they face significant difficulties. The average net income from royalties of a freelance book and periodical writer in Canada was under $12,000 in 1998 and it has changed little since then, Mr. Minister, $12,000.

Copyright is the legal foundation that permits creators to control the use of their work but unfortunately we are one of the groups likely to benefit least from its commercial exploitation. If culture is to be encouraged in this country, then copyright legislation must be strengthened in ways that improve and support the royalty income of authors. The Writers Union of Canada I want to say is in favor of revisions to the Copyright Act, mainly to address the digital environment which has changed things for us considerably. But as I say, these changes must benefit creators as well as the public that uses and enjoys the work of writers.

And since Bill Freeman has made points on these issues, I will just continue with a few additional or the same points. First of all, writers want their work widely distributed and easily accessible by the public. There's no point sitting in a room for five years if nobody is going to read what you wrote. Writers must be fairly paid. The integrity of their works must be respected. Now here is a point I'd like to emphasize. New copyright legislation should facilitate an expansion of our existing system of collective licensing. Collective licensing can provide users with easy access to copyright materials through one-stop shopping and also provide writers with fair remuneration. Collective licensing makes new exceptions unnecessary, Mr. Minister, including exceptions for digital delivery by schools and libraries. Fair dealing already allows free use of a substantial amount of a copyright work for specified purposes. A system of collective licensing in place, should there be one, there would be no need for these purposes to be expanded. Thank you very much.

Applause

Simon Shaw: Hi. My name is Simon Shaw. There's a little coffee shop and this little coffee shop has no staff. They sell bagels, they sell all kinds of donuts and all the staff, they work on an honor system and the money that the owner saves in not having staff, he trusts everyone out there to actually pay for their product and then leave the store. And he's making a phenomenal amount of money doing this in these savings. I operate six terabyte servers of music and movies that I share freely with my friends all around the world. Most of your works are on my servers, four of which are here in Toronto. And this is the largest… I would say I am the largest Canadian library in Canada that actually gives culture back. I'd challenge a lot of you to know any of these names — Paschendale, the vast majority of people in Canada don't know this movie. Don't. In this room maybe. Rapid Proof Fence, Whale Writer, these are movies that most of you in this room may know of but I challenge 1% of Canada to say they know what Rapid Prove Fence is even about.

You are a well educated, well versed group that knows these things because you're all in the industry. But what I'm talking about is I'm talking about movies like Milk that changed my perception and changed the way I thought about different topics. There are movies out there that have actually changed who I am and who my children are and how they perceive the world. What you're asking copyright is doing, it's actually taking away culture from Canada. This group would have you believe that the culture that's out there is something to be protected. If it's protected only amongst those who can afford culture, then there really is no dissemination of that culture.

I know you'll argue and I know you're stringent about it but what I'm talking about is an actual environment in which everyone can share, and I'm not talking about the movies that, the little trivial ones like Terminator and the Last Spider Man. I'm talking– about movies that actually move people, movies that people wouldn't pick up at a video store, they wouldn't go and say let me watch this movie and see what it's about. I would never have watched Milk. I'll be honest with you. I would have seen that movie and said it's a weird looking movie with a weird cover but you know what? I got it for free. I downloaded it and I thought it was awesome. And I'll be honest with you; I actually bought 76 copies one year of Rapid Proof Fence, Whale Writer, a movie most of you probably never watched, for Christmas. So that's how I gave back.

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you. Next I'm looking for 143 making his way to the microphone. We have 10 minutes remaining. I'm hoping it's 143.

Unidentified: I'm a lawyer who's happily been employed in the entertainment industry for the past eight years. The one thing everyone in this room can agree on is that this is a pivotal time for all copyright-related industries in Canada. A previous speaker mentioned that this is not a debate about two extremes. I take offense to that. It's exactly what this is. The choice for our lawmakers is simple. On the one hand you continue to do nothing and continue to be the laughing stock of the world through our severely outdated copyright laws and continue to be a cesspool for online pirates such as the last speaker… or we update our Copyright Act as the rest of the modernized world has done to protect creators' rights.

I, like the thousands of Canadians that are employed in copyright-related industries, devote our time, energy and passion to our viable industries. If the lawmakers opt to do nothing, this will result in the continued erosion of numerous jobs and the death of viable business models. Those of us that support copyright reform are not looking for some radical copyright changes. We are simply looking for appropriate copyright protection like the rest of the world, no more, no less. I have a variety of other really intelligent points here but I'm going to throw that away and since hopefully I'll be one of the last speakers, I'm going to provide a recap of what we heard this evening.

There have been four camps you've heard from this evening. The first camp which I'm proudly a member of which is the vast majority of this room are the individuals who make their livelihood in the copyright-related industries. Our families are supported by us who work in it, we foster jobs, we invest money in the Canadian economy. You've heard from the anti-group which I believe my notes here consist of three students and, like I mentioned, the self-professed online pirate. The third camp is the group that wants to focus on exceptions and what I would say to exceptions is let's not get bogged down in the exceptions, let's focus on the reform and we can address the exceptions as part of the overall reform.

Applause

Unidentified: And the fourth camp, which is really, really disheartening to hear, is the camp that, to be honest, believes that you'll do nothing. They're the levy camp. They're the camp that are prepared to throw away their hard-earned investment to get 1 to 2 cents on the $1 that they should be getting, to throw away that 98 cents that their copyrights are worth. Please let's do the right thing, let's get clear accurate clear concise laws in place and let's do it now.

Applause

Diane LeBreton 118. Pass to the Web please.

Nicole Frenette: We have a comment from the Web in responses to the young man's comments regarding file sharing and his remark that he is from a generation of copying. This is exactly why we require copyright law. This young man does not know the hard work that an artist/creator puts into their work. It is up to the creator to decide whether he or she wishes to disseminate their work for free. No one else should decide that. If we allow unlimited file sharing, we're not incentivizing creators to create.

Also a comment from Elliott from Halifax. The artist has, should have the right to see how their music is distributed, not the label. And at this very moment, and this is from Brian, sorry, at this very moment within the length of time this town hall has discussed copyright reform, thousands have downloaded a song, a full album or even a full movie that they can watch or listen to. They have no intention of purchasing anything further whether it's going to a store to buy a CD or to the local video store to purchase a Blue ray copy of the movie. Instead, they just want what they want and want it now. The funny thing is these individuals wouldn't know what in fact they wanted to download if it wasn't for the marketing and publicity funds companies allocate as an investment to bring these artists, movies to the forefront of our minds.

Applause

Nicole Frenette: The only people making money are the Internet providers who are clearly aware of what people are downloading, otherwise why would they have multi-0tiered pricing for various monthly downloading allotments?

Applause

Diane LeBreton Thank you. I'm going to close the speakers list because with five minutes remaining we do want to provide some time for Minister Clement to close off the evening. So are numbers 43 and 92 wanting to speak? Yes, please.

Unidentified: (inaudible) lobbyists for the music industry and entertainment industry and not many normal people here. I just want to actually kind of mention that what the discussion here today really should be is about entitlement.

Hon. Tony Clement: Thank you for your comments sir. Listen I just want to thank everyone. This was tremendous. I made a lot of notes and of course it is going to be transcribed and put online. And I think there have been a lot of ongoing commentaries through our online service as well, which has been fantastic… And I just want to thank everybody. Obviously there's been quite a diversity of opinion to say at least. And we have got through it in all in one piece. It has not degenerated as a U.S. health care Town Hall meeting. So congratulations. And of course, all of you are helping to advance the discussion. I just want to assure you, we're not, as a government, we're not coming at this with a whole lot of preconceptions, other than the fact that we do have to get to a new copyright law. And a number of you and a number online have expressed frustrations with the fact that we haven't been able to implement WIPO in 10 years and believe me we're as frustrated as you are, and we take our roles as Parliamentarians very seriously. This is a role for the Parliament; it's not just a role for the government. The government might have a bill but knowing this kind of discussion it is going to be all of Parliament that's going to have to partake in the discussion. That means all the political parties are represented; and indeed all the stakeholders who would like to have direct representation on the bill. So I am looking forward despite the fact that this is going to be quite a challenging piece of legislation. I am looking forward to at least introducing the bill and then continuing the discussion in the great Canadian way that we do which is politely and with respect for another and continue that discussion to a final and hopefully vey successful conclusion. Thank you very much and have a good evening.