I think from the beginning, the inception of the project, the true copyright owner of the concept was an author of a series of books. We did an arrangement with her, and she participates in revenues every year from our budget, plus she gets a participation in success. She is making some money alongside with us.
If we were not able to control that IP and the initial writers who we brought on to the show.... It wasn't their idea. We went to them and said we have this idea and asked if they would help us develop it. We actually had a couple of missteps with some writers who didn't quite get the tone or the storylines that we wanted to do, so we moved on.
If the first writers who had got involved with our concept then had become the owners of that concept, that would have stopped things in their tracks, if we hadn't progressed because we weren't able to get the show made because nobody bought into their vision. It would have tangled up the development process quite a bit.
When we go to the market and we talk to a U.K. broadcaster, a French broadcaster or even a Canadian broadcaster, there's a package of rights that are derived from the copyright ownership that allows the thing to be exploited in as many ways as possible. If we had carved off with a bunch of different copyright holders, we may not have all those rights or we would not be able to exploit in the most fulsome and efficient way.
I read the presentation made by the CMPA. Stephen Stohn made a comment that struck me as well. We've done more than 200 episodes of Murdoch Mysteries. We've had more than 150 writers write scripts. We've had more than 75 directors. If they own the copyright, they can't do anything because we own the underlying project. They can't actually take it to market. They can own the script or the work, but they can't do anything with it. It would turn the business on its head.