The government’s long-awaited copyright bill, tabled April 25, left organizations such as actra and the Canadian Music Publishers Association humming a happy tune. However, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is singing the blues – not for what the bill contains but what it omits.

‘At a time when broadcasters are most vulnerable, they’re being denied rights enjoyed by their competitors south of the border,’ says cab president Michael McCabe. ‘Competition is exploding all around us, yet this bill is clearly anti-competitive.’

Bill C-32, presented by Deputy Prime Minister and now former Minister of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps and Industry Canada Minister John Manley, proposes amendments to areas of the Copyright Act mostly affecting radio broadcasters, music producers and performers.

The changes include a levy on blank audio tape cassettes to remunerate creators for private copying of musical works, provisions for royalties to producers and performers of sound recordings, and statutory recognition of the contractual economic rights of performers in cinematographic works.

However, McCabe says three distinct areas of copyright law impacting television broadcasters have been overlooked.

A change long sought by the cab but absent from the bill is a criterion that would direct the Copyright Board to set copyright tariffs that reflect competitive market realities. Currently, Canadian tv stations pay 2.1% of their revenue in copyright fees, while American broadcasters pay 1%. For example, when a Canadian station airs a program (with its theme music), it pays twice as much to the composer of the music as a u.s. station does to the same composer.

‘We have argued for some time that the Copyright Board should take into account the marketplace when it makes its decisions as to what the rate should be,’ says McCabe. ‘We are paying twice as much as the American stations we compete with. This hampers our ability to compete on the information highway.’

Another key area for the cab, again overlooked by the bill, is the so-called signal right, which would give Canadian broadcasters the right to control or receive compensation for the use of their signal by cable, satellite, phone companies or other distributors – a right enjoyed by u.s. broadcasters.

Thirdly, McCabe stresses the cab’s disappointment at the lack of the ‘Ephemeral Exemption’ that would allow stations to record music for later broadcast. ‘ctv cannot even provide its viewers with instant replay of a figure-skating performance if it’s accompanied by music.’

McCabe acknowledges that stations often do breach this part of copyright law and are seldom reprimanded. However, in Quebec, the Societe du Droit de Reproductions des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs au Canada took tva to court for violation of the copyright law, and tva was ordered by the court to pay up. ‘This exemption is something we had been promised over and over again by the Department of Heritage,’ adds McCabe.

cab hopes to table its recommendations when Bill C-32 goes to a parliamentary committee this summer.