The term of the copyright itself, set as the life of the author plus 50 years, constitutes further evidence that the author must be an individual and a physical person, someone who can be credited with authorship and natural ownership of moral rights, not a corporation or other legal entity. This interpretation of the act is supported by all existing Canadian case law and Quebec jurisprudence under the Civil Code.
The act also explicitly distinguishes between the author and the maker of a work. While the maker designation is mostly used in relation to sound recordings, it is also defined for audiovisual works, and nowhere in the act is first ownership of copyright or moral rights ever assigned to the maker of an audiovisual work. This further establishes that ownership of copyright and moral rights must belong solely to the originating author and that the author must be a physical person giving the work its original dramatic character.
This is not only the existing interpretation of the courts, but it is effectively already the policy embedded in the agreements and contracts in our industry. Businesses require certainty, and no producer, studio, broadcaster or distributor would ever invest in a project without knowing they had secured the rights necessary to exploit it. This is why screenwriters and directors already routinely sign over their exploitation and moral rights and are already compensated with fees for their talent and for future use of their creation.
The change we're advocating today would cause no disruption to the status quo in our industry, no change to the way business is typically done, but it would acknowledge our moral rights as individuals and creators and make clear for the discussion of any future platform that those rights must continue to be respected.
Members of the committee, I thank you for your time.
We'd be pleased to answer your questions.