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Canada's Music Lobby Buys Government Access
An anonymous reader writes "Copyfighting law professor Michael Geist, who previously uncovered financial links between recording industry lobbyists and Canada's Minister of Canadian Heritage Bev Oda (who is responsible for copyright policy), has now identified what big cash donations will get you. He reports that Oda met with the President of the Canadian Recording Industry Association on a monthly basis last year just as the government was preparing copyright reform legislation and Canadian artists were calling for an end to P2P lawsuits. Is it any wonder that Canadians seem likely to lose
their fair use rights?"
The lobby is pissing money down a rat hole. The government is in a minority position and will likely fall in the next few months. Considering that the conservatives have steadily dropped in the polls, they are not likely to be around to put such legislation into effect.
I imagine in the meantime, they have bigger fish to fry (like trying to survive), than to worry about a politically unpopular move to satisfy record company executives.
If I remember correctly hadn't the Canadian Supreme court already decided that downloading music for personal use was within our rights? If that's the case then can't we rely on that case as a precedent to help render this presumed upcoming law void? http://www.cirpa.ca/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID= 824&SiteNodeID=66
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I thought the Conservative party was supposed to bring an end to corruption and a new environment of accountability.
;)
But, but, they introduce an Accoutability Act and everything! It even has fancy paper!
I find it disenheartening that her response was "it was legal at the time". Shouldn't she be respecting the act NOW, since her government pushed it through? Respect the spririt of the law and all that? It reminded me of contractors who say "what? I did it to code" which basically means "I did the bare minimum to avoid losing my license."
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
RTFAs - she meets with the CRIA but won't meet with any other relevant organizations (such as consumer rights groups or Canadian artists groups).
Theres a pretty big difference between lobbying and bribery. Lobbying isn't intrinsically bad - heck the ACLU does it as does the EFF among /. favourites. The trouble is lobbying is not very far removed from campaign donations. Industry gives politician money and then politician is very receptive to industry umbrella organization lobbying. The latter is for all intents and purposes bribery, especially given the copyright reform legislation. She has apparently been a broadcaster for the better part of her life. Can we say conflict of interest. Somebody should call them on it and accuse her of bribery - there are presumably laws against that sort of thing in Canada. The British probably left something like a public interest litigation around. And if Oda is a minister then accuse Harper of running a corrupt government. Even if it isn't successful the press is bad, and the embarrassment will force them to do something.
Longer term I think there should be a declaration on who writes an actual bill not just who sponsors it, and politicians be forced to declare conflict of interest and remove themselves from any proceedings regarding such legislation or face censure - something I'm sure their opponents will enjoy using the next election.
Of course the trouble with all this is that even if media industry looses this round, they'll just try again in a few years. So I still smile when I hear that the music industries sales are still falling despite the growth of online sales.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Most of it is. Except Quebec. There is only one official language there: French. They can pull these shenanigans because they did not sign our constitution.
It is. I live in Winnipeg, which is supposed to be the largest French speaking population outside of Quebec. I have never met anybody who spoke only French and no English in my life. My wife is French, but she doesn't use it other than talking to her family, and they speak English just fine. Why should I bother with another language which I'll rarely ever be able to use, and have no desire to learn? I'd much rather learn ruby or python thank you very much.