Today, Music Canada CEO Patrick Rogers made comments at the opening of the Canadian music week, “”The state of the industry: (night) year of change.Looking back for a year, which changed everything (again!) Patrick shared his views on how the industry works together to be knocked on in seismic events, such as Generative AI and the implementation of an online act of act.
Read his full comments below.
Good morning,
I am very glad to welcome you to the opening of the Canadian music week and our programming Morning of Music Canada.
What year was from last year CMW. We saw how the government, regulators, industry, artists and stream platforms face what will happen next, regulating the digital space. At the same time, we saw how many of the same players are trying to deal with AI today, AI tomorrow and AI, from which we must protect.
In just a couple of moments, I am going to sit with a famous economist and expert on digital streaming things.
After that, we learn from the doctor Moiya McTier from the art of human art and Chris Frankenberg from Sony Music Entertainment, which are going to share their views on the efforts of the industry and what we should look at here in Canada.
I am very glad to hear from these two experts, but while I'm here, let me tell you two things about AI, in which I became sure, from last year's CMW.
Firstly, there is no doubt that the swallowing of songs for teaching AI is the use of copyright – the copyright of everyone in the song. We must remember that AI is just a technology, and copyright is a structure used to protect the value of art.
In many respects, none of this is new. Each time a new technology appears, this crop, mines or swallowing, which value for free, we have these debates. But I feel good where we are on this, and I am proud that I join the creators in protecting the value of their creations.
Now, why I feel this, I could tell you that I can’t help but notice that those who have spent the last 30 years as professors, lawyers and consultants in combating anti-copier, everyone suddenly become professors, lawyers and consultants for the AI-Breed-BEL-TALL-TALL-TOO-StAL movement. It's really amazing.
But the other reason I know is the copyright problem is the results of the outputs. The indisputable voice of Johnny Kash Mira Barbie only proves that AI was trained in Johnny Kash and Aqua. Or take a generated image, which, as it turned out, turns on someone else's watermark – this proves the same. This last year taught us that these systems actually do not create anything really new. Only people can do it.
Our industry is an early teacher of AI, and we are glad that AI can bring a person creative expression. But we need a loan, compensation and consent. The creators should be able to decide whether and how the work of their life is used, and they should be able to agree on this value in the fair market.
But I look optimistic that if we respect the creators and copyright frame, we can move from the most difficult in the world of paint by number to something truly magnificent.
The second one I am convinced last year is the very real and very urgent danger of Deepfakes. The pace with which the technology has accelerated from “I do not think that this is real” to “I need to check if it is real,” is terrible. This is not just the problem of the musical industry – this is the problem of society. Music Canada spent a lot of time, talking with politicians about this over the past year. What is so amazing is that, although we have laws that prevent personality or theft of personality by phone, in journal advertising ads and on advertising shields – and everyone agrees that this is important – there is still uncertainty in what to do with imitations of artificial intelligence.
Our answer is simple – to do what is illegal in the analogue world is illegal in the digital world.
Deepfakes is not just a problem for our best artists or world leaders, they are increasingly becoming a threat of hardworking Canadians and suffering – their children. All Canadians deserve a clear right that protects, how their name, image and similarity are used. We will continue to work on this, and I look forward to telling you next year.
Turning to another Music Canada priority in digital space – the work of the CRTC for the implementation of the online streaming transmission and their updated roadmap.
In Music Canada, we are very serious about this process, I believe that this is the process of regulation once in a generation, and everyone is interested, should treat it as such.
But I think it would be useful to break, why I think it is so important.
I will start with the simplest. We had a home Internet, widely available in this country for more than 30 years. And we all learned to use it as much as possible without a Canadian regulatory organ, without removing it throughout this time. So much so that on April 26, 2023, the digital platforms in Canada were not regulated – and on April 27, 2023 – with the adoption of the law on online transmission, they were. It was always felt for me as a big change.
That is why I believe that CRTC should be encouraged to create the best regulatory system for digital platforms and Canadian creators who create songs that saw us all in the services.
What we cannot do is just to try to attract old radio stations to the global digital economy in which Canadian artists find success and that consumers enjoy.
We also simply cannot ignore the presence, investment and contribution of platforms to the Canadian industry during the unregulated time. It is important that on the platforms there are teams based in Canada – everyone in this room knows how important it is to help the artists cover their fans around the world. The same applies to our members – the main labels of Canada – with completely new buildings full of Canadians, concentrated on Canadian artists and their global success.
In one of the most powerful parts of phase 1 in CRTC in November, Patrick Oldos from Nettwerk warned that we should not forget about damage to the musical industry on dark days of digital piracy – and that these dark days were replaced by licensed streaming era, which opened the doors for Canadian and local artists for building global fans.
For me, this means that regulation should not interfere with the experience of listening on stream platforms or we risk returning users to unlicensed services.
If this regulation will work, we need to build a system for today and tomorrow, and not just try to make up for 30 years of lack of regulation.
That is why I think it's time to turn each stone turn over. I really really understand the flow gear. How Canadians listen to how artists benefit from this; Dear deeply how we can achieve more success.
That is why I am so skeptical of those who urge us to turn any stones.
Here's what, I think, we will find when we really plunge and carefully look at all aspects of the stream market and our normative legal base: we will at the basis of artists. Canadian and indigenous artists in every corner of this country sing, write, rap and performance. Not only for spectators in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal or even in New York, but also for fan -bazs, which became possible thanks to the global digital industry in Nigeria, Senegale and India.
Canadian artists do not need a “ceiling in Canada” to “keep them here.” They need and, importantly, want a map of the world.
We need a system that encourages Canadian artists to work with the best in the world so that they can compete with the world.
We have a lot of work. Since the stream gear does not just differ from the radio, this is the opposite.
I am going to explain how I know that this is true. Not because Will Page told me about this, but because my father blew me up on road trips when I was a child.
Whenever we were in the car for a lot of time, with my father at the wheel, my mother turned to Q107, Chum FM or Chfi on the dial at our Ford pace. After only a second or two, she turned a volume set of 0. After a small amount, it was sung on himself, my dad either called the melody – or if he felt especially spectacular – he would have joined the song in the process.
Now a lot is happening here – first, let's give my father to my father – this is a cool part for parties. Developed by the wrong youth locked in his bedroom, listening to an infinite amount of music – but – this is also an explained mathematical equation.
General.
Our regulation system is built for the party of my father.
But today, joining 120,000 songs loaded to the platforms every day is hardly beginning of start.
And yet – more artists around the world are listening to more than when, more, more people are more than genres than when – due to stream gear. Canada is a success story in a global digital economy.
Our new regulation system should reflect this. He must respect the new players in space, understand modern ways to success and really want to make decisions necessary to help turn Canadian artists into global stars.
At the same time, let's start this process with someone, who really understands what we are talking about – an economist and expert on streaming of music, there will be Page.
