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Canadian Record Industry's Secret Lobby Campaign
CRIAWatch writes "Michael Geist has an editorial published in the Hill Times, a Canadian
political newsweekly, about a secret lobbying campaign by the Canadian Recording Industry Association. The report details how days after the last Canadian election CRIA lobbyists worked with officials to plan an event featuring speakers on the CRIA payroll who are promoting a DMCA for Canada, dozens of government officials from seven departments, an expensive lunch with senior government executives paid for by taxpayers, as well as a private meeting with the Canadian Heritage Minister who is responsible for copyright law."
I for one welcome our wealthy overlords. In all seriousness many democratic countries are effectively ruled by the rich already. (For example consider the amount of money needed to win an election, ensuring all candidates are either independently wealthy or in the pockets of their campaign contributors) Why should it surprise anyone that the people in power are making laws that benefit themselves? See Plutocracy and tell me with a straight face that isn't almost every modern "democratic" government.
Philosophy.
Kinda makes me feel like punching a bunch of corrupt officials. Dunno about you.
Life is not for the lazy.
"How do you know it's a DMCA?"
"It's got shit all over it."
"Well I didn't vote for it."
KFG
between "secret lobbying" and "bribery"
In my country bribery used to be a scandalous form of fraud.
call a spade a spade, you hand money/favors to politician in the expectation he gives you something worthwhile for your money
you really think [COMPANYNAME] would spend millions in "contributions" if it made no difference ? do you think these companies treat it as a charity donation or as a strategic investment ?
lobbying is just another word for legalised bribery
democracy has nothing to do with it
money and material desire is the problem
Watch out Canada! We'll make you into the United States yet!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"The music lobby group was planning a study on the Canadian music industry and was seeking $50,000 in funding from Canadian Heritage to help support the project. " I am going to freak, if I as a tax payer have to pay to fund corprate propoganda.
The only members of the CRIA are the American record labels. The Canadian labels have all pulled out.
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I'd like to see a list of exactly which government officials attended this.
As signatories of the 1996 WIPO Copyright treaty, Canada is legally obliged to create a DMCA type law. They signed up to this already - it is just a matter of implementation.
I had no idea what the Canadian Heritage was, so I looked it up. Apparenty, its an official goverment branch that is responsible for national policies and programs that promote Canadian content, foster cultural participation, active citizenship and participation in Canada's civic life, and strengthen connections among Canadians.
You can call secret meetings with public officials to take rights from the people to create property for corporations "democracy", but that's your problem.
--
make install -not war
I'm from Ottawa and have been to Le Panache. It is expensive for the area. There are probably a few more expensive restaurants, but not many. I don't know what they had for lunch, but there are plenty of cheaper (and still quite private) restaurants in the area. Personally, I find it offensive that a lobby group asked for a meeting and the government took them out to such a fancy place (or any place at all, really -- they don't have meeting rooms in the parliament buildings???). There are plenty of pro-user lobbiests who can't even get the Heritage department to read an email let alone take them out to lunch.
> "How do you know it's a DMCA?" > "It's got shit all over it." > "Well I didn't vote for it." Bloody peasant. You don't vote for the DMCA. Well sure you don't vote for it in the normal sence.
If you pay taxes you are voting for it though (just read the summary, everything these lobbyists are doing is on the tax payers dime not their own).
While it is true that Canada signed the 1996 WIPO treaty it does not mean that we have to pass a law anything like the DMCA in the U.S. Before it was killed due to the last Federal election, the copyright reform act that was proposed did contain provisions for criminalizing the circumvention of digital copy controls, but only if the intent was to pirate. Circumvention of a copy control for personal use was excepted, so ripping a copy of a DVD to your hard drive or cracking e-book encryption to interopt with text to speech software and anything else that could fall under personal was permitted. Huge, huge difference. That's not to say the bill was perfect, libraries and universities were not happy with some of the provisions. I am sure they are happy the bill died.
Also, the personal exemption for private copying of audio works was untouched, so one could continue to make copies of CDs and tapes without worry of prosecution.
Hey, it might be cold in Cananda, but were not stupid. When the previous bill went to committee it was brought up again and again how the DMCA in the U.S. had failed and was a model for how not to implement the digital copy controls outlined in the WIPO treaty. I don't think the current Conservative government wants to go through all that again, so I doubt that any copyright bill they propose would differ substantially from the previous one, although you can be sure that libraries, schools and universities are going to make themselves a little better heard.
Something seems a bit fishy about the motives of CRIA and its not just this Canadia-taxpayer funded meal.
Not only have most of the Canadian labels pulled out, but they don't seem to easily identify which labels they represent.
More telling though is this site http://www.cria.ca/stats.php which has their industry statistics on CD and DVD sales. I'm not an accountant or trained in business, but doesn't it feel funny to read this sentence? "Sales information is supplied by members of CRIA and tabulated by Grant Thornton without audit." I take their said statistics with a grain of salt.
Politician: So are you saying movies and music are being pirated? Do you have less sales records as proof?
CRIA: Yes.
Critic: So who tabulates the records? Is there an audit trail?
CRIA: One person. Sorry no audits available.
Politician: Enough! The proof is in the records!
Critic: But they're not even responsibily tallied! We need more information.
Politician: We're passing the law.
Ah, Democracy!! (sigh)
You do realize the Liberals were looking at the possibility of something DMCA-like just a few weeks after Martin took the reigns, don't you?
They're all corrupt. Trying to blame one particular party for the corruption and mess that is any government is like trying to blame the pollution in Los Angeles on one particular blue Chevy Nova.
(Why blue? I dunno. Seemed like a good colour at the time.)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
For example consider the amount of money needed to win an election, ensuring all candidates are either independently wealthy or in the pockets of their campaign contributors)
Actually the cost of an election has gone way down, in America that is. Only a fraction of the money that used to be spent lying to the electorate is now necessary to bribe the programmer of the Diebold election machine. Pay off the programmer and you win: 51% to 49%, each and every time.