Thanks, Gerry.
If anyone is looking for House, it's House M.D. and it was last Monday. The series continues until its season—and, in fact, series—finale sometime in April. It is not a homegrown series, but we do have Flashpoint and Rookie Blue and, of course, Degrassi, which is the great pioneer in Canadian-made homegrown TV series that have completely won over the world in the last decade and a half.
Today we'd like to discuss an issue that is not covered by the CCA submission, yet is of huge importance to the DGC. This committee review creates the opportunity to provide clarity with respect to issues of authorship of audiovisual works. For most works in which copyright subsists under the act, the author is self-evident. For example, the writer of a novel, the sculptor of a sculpture, the painter of a painting, or the composer of a musical score is, in each case, clearly the author of that work.
We haven't the same clarity with audiovisual works. The rights of the works' creators are not acknowledged under the Copyright Act with the same clarity. It's time that this gap in the act was closed. The DGC believes the technical amendment very narrowly framed to define the authors of an audiovisual work as the work's credited director and writer will do just that.
The director and screenwriter, of course, create the audiovisual work. The writer begins with a blank page, and characters, dialogue, and story elements emerge. The director imparts a three-dimensional vision to the work. Casting, selecting location, staging, editing, sound design, scoring, visual effects, colour correction—all aspects of committing the work to the screen—fall to the director.
Defining the authors of the audiovisual work is key to giving full effect to some of the amendments included in Bill C-11 regarding the recognition of moral rights and the use of digital rights management systems. It's important also to say that statutory recognition of authorship brings codification and clarity to the already existing rights of directors and writers as recognized in legal precedent and industry practice.