Is the owner of a DVD, in Canada, legally permitted to rent it out
(without any special licensing or explicit permission from the
copyright holder) for a fee as long as the copyright holder receives a
reasonable percentage of revenue?

Suppose I have a vast DVD collection, could I legally loan DVDs, for a
fee, to my acquaintances without obtaining special
permission/licensing from the distributor?

The first question is the one I'm looking to have answered. The second
one is simply there to put the first one in context. There are both
essentially the same question.

I have been told that the answer is ?yes? but I have been unable to verify it.

If the answer is yes, please provide supporting evidence to your
answer in the form of links, or references, to the relevant federal
statutes or regulations or applicable case law.

If the answer is no, please provide one or more relevant examples from case law.

If you have not jumped though the hoops of a conventional DVD rental
business, I suspect, determining the copyright owner and the address
to send his royalty will be very time consuming. If you send the check
to the wrong address and the copyright owner gets his lawyer after
you, you could be very sorry, as some (most?) lawyers are dispicable. 
 Neil

Thanks for your comment Neil.
That problem can be solved by keeping the money in a trust account and
waiting until the copyright owner asks for the money.

Um...The copyright owner is not responsible for tracking you down and
demaning his or her money. Anyone using copyrighted material is
required to do the running around to contact the copyright holder.

Kriswrite