Canada's documentaries lost to copyright

Canada's taxpayer-funded National Film Board has underwritten many
brilliant documentaries that are no longer available due to the
prohibitive cost of re-licensing the copyrights for the materials they
incidentally feature. The Documentary Organization of Canada has
released a new white paper
detailing the many Canadian treasures that are lost due to the greed of
rightsholders and the spike in copyright liability insurance.

Thanks to spiralling copyright licensing costs, payable to
whoever holds the copyright (unions, archives, creators, corporations)
-- and thanks, too, to the rising cost of insurance to protect against
copyright claims -- more and more public film footage is no longer
available to the Canadian public, nor for use by Canadian creators.
That's the message of the DOC's new white paper, released yesterday by
the 700-member organization.

The Copyright Clearance Culture and Canadian Documentaries, written
by Ottawa copyright lawyer Howard Knopf, cites many eyebrow-raising
cases. An example: Quebec filmmaker Sylvie Van Brabant's film
Remous/Earthwalk has been withdrawn from public circulation because its
main character sings 30 seconds of a recognizable tune whose rights the
National Film Board has deemed too expensive to renew.