Slashdot Mirror
The Power of Backroom Lobbying: How the Music Industry Got a Copyright Extension
An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian government's unexpected budget decision to extend
the term of copyright for sound recordings came as a surprise to most copyright watchers, but not the music industry lobby, which was ready with a press release within minutes. How did the industry seemingly know this was coming? Michael Geist reports that records show the extension is the result of backroom lobbying with monthly meetings between senior government officials and music industry lobbyists paving the way for copyright term extension without public consultation or debate.
Why should anyone surprised, given the industry's deep pockets and demonstrated penchant for bribery?
IMNSHO anyone "surprised" by this outcome is naïve.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
...when the copyright on Celine Dion's horrible music expires anyway?
from the same site.. interesting insight into what really happened... http://www.michaelgeist.ca/201...
the songs themselves had a longer copyright term than the recordings of them. an enterprising company started selling music that fell in that gap.. songwriters still got paid but the original distributing labels (sony, universal, etc) got left out.. they got mad and did what big companies with governments wrapped around their corporate fingers do.. they got laws changed the way they want.
It's a disgusting, dirty, sordid job, and deserves all the contempt it gets.
But the real traitors are the politicians in bed with those lobbyists. Supposedly representing the greater interest, in reality just serving their own greed.
Those should go to jail, no less.
I'm not saying corporate lobbyists aren't burrowed like ticks into every major government, because they are. But let's be real. They were "ready with a press release within minutes" because they wrote both press releases, and read the one that fit the situation. That's how it works.
Bribes.
Calling it lobbying is just sugar coating it.
For some reason I read that as "paying the way for copyright term extension". After realising that I'd misread it I corrected myself. Then corrected myself again when I realised that the misread version makes more sense.
Lobbying is a polite name for bribery and coercion.
Fuck politeness.
If you have sufficient funds, you can buy any law you want.
They can have all the secret talks they like so long as there is no conflict of interest.
I find it hard to believe however that their isn't a conflict of interest when you have the Minister in change of copyright (Minister of Heritage or something or other, which I don't even fathom how they are in change of copyright in the first place) whole election campaign is/was predominantly funded by big media. How is that not a conflict of interest. They'll come out and say they were not influenced, and that they always believed in whatever bunk they are selling that day. It is a ridiculous farce.
Indeed. But maybe we should choose our battles better. Copyright extension - essentially to infinity - seems silly, but the harm from it pales next to the damage being done by the patent system. Bad patents prevent you from innovating on your own ideas - that, yes, have some basis in what came before (what doesn't?). Copyrights just prevent you from 'free as in beer' access to something that we all agree isn't ours. Sure, there have been stupid cases - like Oracle's insistence to exclusive access to Java API's based on copyright. But for the most part, life and technological and cultural progress would go on fine with Mickey Mouse the exclusive property of the Disney corporation for the next millennium.
I - along with most typical slashdotters - am in knee jerk opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership. Why? Because of the threat that US patent standards will be extended worldwide. And the primary reason corporate lobbyists have inserted themselves into the process is more likely copyright protection. Music and movie studios - and yes, Microsoft and their ilk - want to stop content piracy in China, and other places where copyrights are not respected. I can understand that. Much as I like getting music for free, I get that it's a form of stealing. From what I gather, the TPP has now become so laden with corporate giveaways, that it may not be fixable. But a good trade agreement is certainly possible. It would certainly be better to level the environmental playing field by improving standards in China than by imposing least common denominator standards in the West. Same for worker protections. And I'm willing to believe that the TPP even attempts to do such things. But extending US patent standards to the rest of the world is least common denominator in reverse. Bad enough IMO to scuttle the deal.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Bad patents prevent you from innovating on your own ideas - that, yes, have some basis in what came before (what doesn't?). Copyrights just prevent you from 'free as in beer' access to something that we all agree isn't ours.
"We all agree"? Not everyone agreed about the ruling in Gaye v. Thicke to apply exclusive rights to the overall feel of a musical composition. Not everyone agreed about the ruling in Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music to penalize someone for having copied a melody completely by accident. What steps should a songwriter take to keep from infringing (and remain a songwriter) in this sort of legal landscape? At least expiry keeps, say, the Shakespeare estate from claiming that the entire world is guilty or liable of "nonliteral similarity". It acts as one of the checks on "stupid cases".