Study Deconstructs Canadian Copyright Lobby Deception

An anonymous reader writes "A new Canadian study deconstructs how copyright lobby groups manipulate public opinion by laundering proposals through seemingly independent groups. The study started after the Conference Board of Canada was shown to have plagiarized several of its IP reports and now shows the connections that all lead through the MPAA and RIAA. Michael Geist writes, 'It is not just that these reports all receive financial support from the same organizations and say largely the same thing. It is also that the reports each build on one another, creating the false impression of growing momentum and consensus on the state of Canadian law and the need for specific reforms.'"

Comments

Re:A Good Strategy

[1 a bee]

Exactly. It's been done since time immemorial, a few cases of which are documented in Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. (Nice tag, whoever did it.)

The difference between now and when Chomsky wrote his book is the web, of course. Kudos to this blogger Michael Geist for helping expose a farcical consensus. Hopefully we'll see more of this kind of analysis for other lobby groups as well.

Re:Surprise, surprise.

[causality]

Well of course. You don't put the time/effort/money into forming a group like that unless you have some kind of agenda. That agenda isn't necessarily nefarious or evil, but there has to be something that you're trying to investigate or achieve, and so you're probably going to favor ideas that help you toward your agenda. It's not strange to think that someone looking at the issues with a different agenda in mind will favor different ideas.

I agree with what you are saying there. There's one difference that I consider to be of the utmost importance, however. I would be fine with such groups if they openly stated "We are created and sponsored by the RIAA (or whomever) for the sole purpose of representing their interests." That's not what happened here. They wanted to maintain the illusion of some kind of neutral, dispassionate, unbiased consensus based on facts. That's something that a lot of people want to see badly enough that they are a bit too eager to believe it.

This really should be a crime. It should be a crime, the laws against which are vigorously enforced. I do not exaggerate in the slightest when I say that this is the very sort of thing that, left unchecked, can eventually destroy the freedom and well-being that we currently enjoy. Our governments and legal systems are greatly threatened when they can be gamed like this. Because of that, I personally consider this to be not unlike treason.

I'm shocked!

[BlackSabbath]

You mean the commercial entities with a revenue stream to protect are funding lobby groups to manipulate public opinion and corrupt the political process?
I'm shocked! Shocked I tell ya!

Well, OK. I'm not that shocked. In fact I'm pretty sure this has happened before.
Exxon is pretty good at this sort of thing:-
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding

And groups like the Heartland Institute ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute ) are whoring for so many masters I fully expect to see them expand into the "intellectual property" debate any day now.

Its pretty important for citizens to hone their bullshit detectors to try and figure out when they are the target of a snow job.
Here are a few tools I use to pretty good effect when employing my bullshit detector:

"Who benefits" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
"You can't get something for nothing" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_law
"The simpler theory is often correct" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor
( be careful with that last one - it can be a slippery sucker)