Industry committee  —because they have historical interest.

Industry committee  We can't digitize it and put it on the Internet without permission.

Industry committee  And it has to go document by document.

Industry committee  Exactly. It's no longer centralized.

Industry committee  If you want to digitize a folder, which might include 5,000 documents, you have to go document by document to get the permission.

Industry committee  Most archives in Canada do have crown copyright.

Industry committee  Right. It could be a letter from an MP to a—

Industry committee  That's one of the issues. In archives, we certainly increasingly want to make materials available digitally. We have materials. We have a lot of these materials in the archives. People come to our reading rooms, but where people want to access archival materials now is on the Internet.

Industry committee  We have to get permissions. In fact, recently, the government has changed the way permissions for crown copyright have come about. It's devolved not to a single, centralized source but to the departmental source where the material was created.

Industry committee  You can access it in our reading rooms.

Industry committee  Exactly.

Industry committee  Yes, and if the researcher wants to use the material, they have to get permission from the department.

Industry committee  First of all, I think there's no reason to have perpetual copyright anymore for crown materials. Making it 50 years from the date of creation is a reasonable first accommodation.

Industry committee  Yes, and I think that we then need to look at some of the more problematic areas, and I think we do need a proper.... There have been many different studies, but I think we need a current look at the issues, and we need to bring the stakeholders together to try to solve this problem, which definitely has solutions.

Industry committee  I wouldn't dare to comment on the writers. It seems like she's better placed to....