So we would need to change that.
Ms. Fitzgibbons, I'm glad you're here today.
I've spoken with many producers in Canada, or filmmakers, and I get a different picture on copyright from them than what is usually heard around the table. I often hear how restrictive it is and how hard it is to get rights, even for the most basic footage that would normally be in the public domain anywhere else, but which could be locked under obligations to pay. I even hear about the difficulty of just shooting on location; I was told—I don't know whether it's true—that you couldn't shoot at Niagara Falls, because the image with the lights is under copyright by a large U.S. entertainment industry, so you'd have to pay them if you wanted to shoot on the Canadian side of the falls.
In making a documentary now, you would be excerpting footage, but that would be under a digital lock, so it would basically be illegal.
I raised this issue with one of the groups that were very strong on having no exceptions to digital locks, and they said: “Well, there's no problem. You can take a shot of a television screen.”
What does it mean for your industry and your ability to extract works to make legitimate films if you're being treated as though you were isoHunt?