CPCC launches grassroots campaign to support private copying levy in Canada

 

By Emmanuel Legrand

The Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), which regroups rights organisations and rights holders, has launched the grassroots campaign Stand on Guard for Music to support the private copying regime in Canada. 

  Songwriters, performers and stakeholders are invited to sign a petition that will be sent to their elected representatives, urging them "to amend the Copyright Act to ensure that the private copying regime is made technologically neutral, to protect the rights and livelihoods of our creators and all their partners in Canada’s recorded music industry."

  The petition targets Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains, and local MPs to promote "a flexible, technologically-neutral system that monetises private copying of music that cannot be controlled by rights-holders."

Time for a change

  On the petition's web site, a disclaimer reads: "Canada’s creators and music companies are missing out on payment for a massive use of their work." It explains that research shows that Canadians "still make billions of copies of their music collections, for listening offline," but what has not changed "is simply that those private copies aren’t on cassette tapes, they’re on phones and tablets. And guess what? Only half of those copies are paid for through licensed music services."

  The disclaimer adds: "The Copyright Act has not kept pace with technology, leaving rights-holders unpaid. Shouldn’t every copy count? The time for change is now. Right now, the Government is reviewing copyright reform legislation to be tabled imminently, acting on what they heard in the recent Parliamentary Review of copyright. We need your help to ensure that private copying reform is high on their agenda."

  The petition said the private copying regime, in place since 1997, has generated total royalties of over CA$300 million for over 100,000 recording artists, composers, songwriters, music publishers and labels," but royalties for unlicensed private copies "have plummeted from CA$38 million per year to just CA$1.1 million in 2019," because the private copying regime has been limited to copies on recordable CDs since 2008. The current Copyright Law has not been updated to include phones and tablets, through which most of the copies take place.

Fixing the system

  The letter to policy-makers concludes: "Will you commit to moving forward with this simple legislative change so that our music industry isn’t left behind every time technology changes? Marketplace solutions like a technologically-neutral private copying regime will be essential to our music industry’s recovery from the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and for as long as Canadians copy music."

  Among the organisations supporting the petition is mechanical agency CMRRA, which claimed that an updated private copying scheme "could result in more money for music publishers and self-published songwriters." In a message to stakeholders, CMRRA wrote: "The fix is simple – the Government needs to amend the Copyright Act to ensure that the private copying regime is made technologically neutral. Now is the time to raise your voice to make it happen!"