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Canadian Prime Minister To Music Lobby: Here's Your Copyright Term Extension

An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian government's decision to extend the term of copyright for sound recordings in the budget may have taken most copyright observers by surprise, but not the music industry. The extension will reduce competition, increase costs for consumers, and harm access to Canadian Heritage, but apparently all it took was a letter from the music industry lobby to the Prime Minister of Canada. Michael Geist reports on a letter sent by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the music lobby on the day the change was announced confirming that industry lobbying convinced him to extend the term of copyright without any public consultation or discussion.

6 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Politicans who forget who voted for them... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, he did it 'cause he believes the copyright industry really, really needs more time than lifetime + 70 years to recover their investment.

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  2. Re:Politicans who forget who voted for them... by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is lots of evidence that the music industry gave bribes, they are just the legal kind, called "donations".

  3. You're wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Politicians don't have souls.

  4. Didn't he say "open for business"? by dbIII · · Score: 3, Informative

    Come on guys, you had to see this coming. The "conservatives" of that type are all for change if it's paid for.

  5. Re:Sure, a "letter" by dryeo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well this government has been using copyright(1) to deny citizens access to taxpayer funded research and I'm sure they'd love to keep unfavourable research secret forever, I doubt they're looking that far in the future.
    1. All government stuff is under the Queens copyright in Canada.

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  6. Re:Alberta not lesson enough? by compro01 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know Canadian politics, so not sure what you mean by your comment.

    In the recent provincial election in Alberta (generally regarded as the core of the Conservatives (Stephen Harper's seat is in Alberta). It gets stereotyped as the Canadian version of Texas), the Progressive Conservative Party (who have held government in that province since 1971 (and before them, the also right-wing Social Credit Party held government since 1935) and before the election held 70 out of the 87 seats in the provincial legislature) were swept out by the social-democratic New Democratic Party. It was a really stunning reversal for the province that has been electing right-wing governments for longer than most have been alive to shift straight to our leftish party and, if the recent polling results are to be believed, it has given the federal NDP a serious boost and turned the upcoming federal election (which is expected to happen in October) into a three-way race.

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