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Musician Lobby Terms Balanced Copyright "Disgusting"

An anonymous reader writes "While most of the attention at Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices, the most controversial activity took place outside the hall. It has now been revealed that security guards threatened students and a Member of Parliament for distributing leaflets, and the American Federation of Musicians termed the MP's leaflet, which called for balanced copyright, 'disgusting' and demanded a retraction and apology. At this point, such an admission seems unlikely."

5 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Re:haha by commodore64_love · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    >>>you don't bother to list your sources

    And the Democrats do? Folks like Obama and Pelosi keep saying "we have 50 million uninsured Americans" but never once name a source for that "50" figure, do they? They are practicing that old rule-of-thumb: If you repeat a lie often enough, the people will believe it.

    AND YES I listed the Washington Examiner and the "CBO", aka the Congressional Budget Office, for the first 3% figure. Plus I listed the BBC-TV for the other waiting time/mortality figures. Learn some reading comprehension.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. Re:haha by commodore64_love · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Yeah well I AM biased. I admit that freely, unlike certain liars on NBC or CNN who claim to be unbiased. I don't like the Comcast monopoly, I don't like the Verizon monopoly, I don't like the Microsoft virtual monopoly, and I sure as hell don't want an Uncle Sam monopoly over my body's health. I want freedom to choose, for myself, to pay the bills as they roll in - same way I paid cash for my car.

    Do you know how much tax my grandfather paid when he was in his 20s? 0%.

    That's right - nothing. Only people who earned more than approximately $200,000 were taxed for income. Why is it that our society was able to get by with no income tax on lower/middle income citizens in the 1920s, but today we cannot? It makes no sense to me.

    Yes I know we have Social Security/Medicare now, which requires a 15% flat tax on all workers to maintain, but I still don't see why we need income tax on lower/middle incomes. If I was president the graduated rate would be 0% for the first $100,000. That would help ease the burden.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. Re:haha by gilgongo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "Balanced" does not mean "fair" or "right".

    For example, one might term a new tax structure in which the government takes half of your income "balanced".

    Out of interest, what rate would you say is "balanced" in that case? Most countries have a top rate tax band of about 30-40%, and in the 50 years prior to 1980, U.S. federal marginal income tax rates were well over 50% and sometimes into the 90% range according to wikipedia at least.

    I would think that for a country the size of the U.S., income tax of anything less than about a 20% top rate would mean you'd probably have very basic public health care, few social services, and a skeleton military defence force. But since no large economy has ever got anywhere near that level, I suppose we'll never know for sure.

    --
    "And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
  4. Re:Frankly by melikamp · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Ending sentences with prepositions is what you are accustomed to?

  5. Very clever India... by WoollyMittens · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It's a very nice aircraft India, now how about teaching the other third of your population how to read?