That's a great theoretical question, but as I mentioned in my remarks, I'm a pragmatist. There's an international agreement called the Berne convention, which sets the minimum term that any member of Berne, which includes Canada, can have. That is the life of the author plus 50 years. That's the international standard. That's what Canada should stick to, in my view.
Mr. Knopf's idea is a great one. If we're going to extend that, there's no reason why we can't make the extension of copyright term subject to formalities. We can't do that for the first life plus 50 under the Berne convention, but it's a brilliant idea to make that happen for the second. It would create all kinds of positive ripple effects—namely, moving towards a registry of copyright as exists for every other kind of property right in the world. We can deal with the problem of unlocatable owners or orphan works and begin to treat copyright like a commodity, like the property right that it is. We can only do that if it's registered. Putting that in as a condition of the extra 20 years of protection is a brilliant idea.
I don't think this committee needs to do that, incidentally, or recommend that. That's part of the NAFTA or the USMCA implementation, but you can certainly consider it.