Dierdre McMurdy of the Ottawa Citizen confirms widespread speculation that a copyright bill is only a few weeks away. The article notes the strong link between the bill and U.S. pressure with reports of meetings between U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins and both Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Canadian Heritage Minister Josee Verner. That said, the article doesn't get it all right – Canada didn't sign ACTA (we only agreed to participate in the negotiations), Microsoft's move to Canada has more to do with U.S. immigration policy than Canadian IP law, and Wilkins typically (and misleadingly) claims Canada has the weakest copyright law in the G7, not the G8.
Update: Howard Knopf offers a baker's dozen reasons why Ambassador Wilkins' characterization of Canadian copyright law is wrong.
Where can I find the text of this bill in order to write an accurate letter of concern to my MP?
Not Again
In the days when Bill C-60 reared its head, I wrote AS a recording artist with my concerns to my MP. I got the response in a nutshell, “Negotiations are between government and industry. Public comments are neither required or accepted”.
Brings to mind the words:
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini
We need to strengthen our copyright laws in order to preserve incentives for Canadian artists to create works! Metallica’s music started sucking as soon as they were all worried about people downloading their albums.
Malcolm is an astroturfer
Malcolm is nothing but an astroturfer. CRIA shill.
@Ben: I think it was sarcasm.
Mike, why is mine such a crazy argument that it’s obviously sarcasm?
Malcolm your argument is so crazy because copyright law has never been and will never be created to provide incentives to artists to create, but rather it is to preserve and protect the financial interests of those who make money off the created works, which are usually not primarily the artists. While many artists won’t argue with strengthening protection of their interests, why is it that large corporations are doing the lobbying and political campaign donations?
And in my opinion, Metallica’s music started sucking when they started recording ballads, which was a number of years before they worrying about people downloading their albums.
age of internet?
malcolm posted
‘Metallica’s music started sucking as soon as they were all worried about people downloading their albums.’
really? i didn’t know that napster was older than metallica. i was thinking metallica was older. not that i paid much attention to them.
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