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

Posted by timothy on from the plenty-more-where-that-came-from dept.

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. Politicans who forget who voted for them... by unique_parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and make decisions with their wallet.

    1. Re:Politicans who forget who voted for them... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Like there is an option to vote for someone who isn't a corporate whore.

      The main difference between a prostitute and a politician is that the prostitute only sells her body, not her soul.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    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".

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    3. Re:Politicans who forget who voted for them... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We have more than two political parties in Canada. The choice isn't limited to "Conservatives or Liberals". You can vote for NDP, Green Party, etc.

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      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  2. Votes mean nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When all the candidates on the ballot are bought and paid for by the corporate interests

  3. What Bothers me Most by Rashkae · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't that Copyright protection was extended. That's bad enough, buit is in good company of poorly thought out laws that burocracies and governments have to live with.

    What really bothers me is the Canadian government following the Amerian example of sneaking new laws in completely unrelated bills. A change to the copyright act should have been made in a bill ammeding the copyright act. How can a legal system possibly be sutainable when you have to start looking at annual budget bills of some obscure decade to figure out the copyright statues currently in place?? This practice serves no purprose, other than as a trick for governments to sneak in legal statues they would otherwise not legally be able to do due to opposition, either legislative or public.