Close growing ‘value gap’ by eliminating safe harbour: Music Canada

Music Canada, the trade organization which represents the Canadian divisions of some of the world’s largest record labels, has declared that the gap between what artists create and what they are paid for it — what they call the value gap — has reached “staggering” proportions. In a report released Wednesday, Music Canada attributes the problem to “a broken copyright framework, ill-adapted to the challenges of the digital age,” according to a release. Citing research done by Australian economist George Robert Barker, this value gap has increased by an average of $82 million a year between 1997 and 2017, amounting to a total of $19.3 billion not paid out to the Canadian music industry over 20 years. To address the problem, Music Canada makes five recommendations, chief among them that the federal government initiate a reform of so-called “safe harbour” exemptions, echoing recommendations made by the Heritage committee of the House of Commons in May. Safe harbour exemptions, the report says, should be limited to “true ‘innocent intermediaries’ that are genuinely technical, automated and passive, with no knowledge of alleged infringement and unaware of circumstances to put them on notice of infringement,” and should not apply to the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and other online user-upload services that “optimize and profit from user-uploaded content.” Music Canada president and CEO Graham Henderson said in a phone interview that he believes that the issue of copyright and its relationship with tech giants is a “subset of a much larger issue.” Asked about how these calls for reform would fare against the lobbying power of tech giants, Henderson said the political atmosphere toward tech is changing. “What is militating in our favor now is that this is wearing thin. We’ve had Cambridge Analytica, we’ve had massive data breaches, we’ve had interference in elections, we’ve had all manner of issues with our privacy,” he said. In May the Heritage committee declared that the government should “review the safe harbour exceptions and laws to ensure that Internet service providers are accountable for their role in the distribution of content.” Earlier this month, the Industry committee of the House of Commons took a slightly softer tone on safe harbour exemptions, stopping short of calling for their abolition. The exemptions, the industry committee wrote in its report, should be made “conditional to measures taken against copyright infringement on their platforms.” Music Canada’s report also calls for the Copyright Act to be updated to make sure that platforms like YouTube “negotiate fair and appropriate licensing agreements with rights holders.” Music Canada is also calling for changing the definition of a “sound recording” to allow performers and record labels to profit from songs used in soundtracks for films and television programs. The definition of sound recording was one of the points of departure between the Heritage and Industry committees’ studies, as Heritage called for a change in the definition, while Industry recommended against such a change in its report.

Close growing ‘value gap’ by eliminating safe harbour: Music Canada

Brief | June 26, 2019

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Close growing ‘value gap’ by eliminating safe harbour: Music Canada

Brief | June 26, 2019

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