Yannick Bisson is the star of Murdoch Mysteries, and has appeared on numerous series, including Sue Thomas: F. B. Eye and High Tide.

I was looking forward to a new copyright bill, one that would strike a balance, allowing consumers like me to access creative work when and where I want, while making sure artists, also like me, are fairly compensated for their work. Instead, the Conservative government’s proposed Bill C-32 threatens the future of Canadian content by destroying the tools artists need to make a living and to retain control over their work. It will take money out of creators’ pockets and stunt Canadian innovation and creativity.

That doesn’t help artists and in the long run, it won’t help consumers either. If professional creators aren’t making a living, they can’t keep making quality content Canadians want to watch, read, play and listen to.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s wrong with the bill:

There are too many sections that permit creators’ works to be copied and used without our permission and without any compensation attached.

There are also too many exceptions introduced in the bill that lack clear definitions – creating a lot of work for lawyers, but not so much for creators.

Many of us working in Canada’s $85 billion cultural industries were initially happy to see the government finally catching up and attempting to make our laws compliant with the WIPO Internet Treaties. When looking at other countries that have implemented these treaties, we see new and innovative business models that make content easily accessible to consumers while ensuring those who create the content get the compensation and control they need to keep doing what they do.

Movie studios and record labels benefit, but so do individual performers and artists.

Unfortunately Canada has been falling way behind and this copyright bill was supposed to bring us up-to-date and in line with the rest of the modern world.

All is not lost; Bill C-32 can and must be fixed.

The biggest flaw in Bill C-32 is that it guts collective licensing. In a digital age, the best way to give users easy access to creative work while ensuring creators are compensated is through rights-holder-run societies.

Collectives aren’t new – they’ve been at the core of European cultural industries for decades now and have become essential in Canada too. Instead of taking a long-term view and building on the collective licensing schemes, we have the government proposing to tear them down.

For example, Bill C-32 legalizes reproduction for private purposes, but it does not extend the private copying levy to digital recording devices. The result is that the levy will cease to exist, taking millions of dollars directly out of creators’ pockets – revenue artists presently rely on to innovate and create new content.

How do we fix this? Extend the private copying levy to digital media recorders which have audio and video capabilities just as in the past with blank CDs and cassettes.

Bill C-32 would also make it legal for consumers to ‘mash-up’ copyrighted creative content for non-commercial purposes, and then to let YouTube and other corporations disseminate it. While yes, most artists want their creations to be used and enjoyed, they also want to retain their right to have say over this kind of use and don’t believe that YouTube and Google should stand to make millions at their expense.

Creators are also worried about the expansion of fair dealing to ‘education.’ It’s too wide in scope and lacks definition. Of course we want schools to be able to use content to teach our kids – and they can. Thanks to collective licensing, schools are able to access the materials they need today for $5.16 a student. That’s a small price to pay to support publishers and writers to ensure that our kids have Canadian-written text books. Why would we hobble the Canadian publishing industry?

Educational institutions pay the full cost of teachers’ salaries, desks, computers and any applicable patents on those goods, why would they not pay for content valuable enough to use in teaching?

Content creation is at the heart of a thriving digital economy. If our Canadian cultural industries are to keep producing films, TV programs, video games, music and books, we can’t afford to rip millions of dollars from creators’ pockets. We need to find compromises that balance the interests of Canadians who consume our works with the reality that creators can’t work for free.

MPs have the next few months to work on improving this critical piece of legislation and Canadian creators look forward to hunkering down with them to see that goal reached.