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Canadian Gov’t Pays Copyright Lobby to Lobby

While the Harper government last week passed accountability legislation in the House of Commons, my weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) suggests that another form of lobbying exists that requires closer scrutiny – lobbying that is financed by the government itself.  According to government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, last fall the Ministry of Canadian Heritage entered into a multi-year agreement with the Creators' Rights Alliance, a national coalition of artists groups and copyright collectives with members both small (the League of Canadian Poets) and large (SOCAN and Access Copyright).  The CRA has eight objectives, which notably include "to ensure that government policy and legislation recognize that copyright is fundamentally about the rights of creators" and "to ensure that international treaties and obligations to which Canada is signatory provide the strongest possible protection for the rights of creators."

The Canadian Heritage – CRA agreement, which could run until 2008 at a total cost of nearly $400,000, appears to be designed primarily to enable the CRA to lobby the government on copyright reform.  In return for $125,000 annually, the CRA provides the Ministry with its views on copyright in the form of comments, analysis or research papers (other deliverables include a policy conference, website communications, and a regular newsletter).

The contract raises several issues.

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June 26, 2006 5 comments Columns

Canadian Digital Security Companies Warn Against Anti-Circumvention Laws

Many of Canada's leading digital security companies, including Third Brigade, Certicom, VE Networks, and Borderware Technologies, have issued a public letter to Ministers Bernier and Oda on copyright reform.  The letter, signed by Brian O'Higgins (widely regarded as a world leader in authentication and digital security issues as a founder […]

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June 22, 2006 5 comments News

European Commissioner Calls for Copyright Balance

Charlie McCreevy, the European Commissioner for Internet Market and Services, has issued his annual policy strategy in which he notes that "protection of intellectual property and copyright also raises important questions of their effect on consumers" and calls for balance in that respect.

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June 22, 2006 1 comment News

Alouette Canada’s Official Launch

Alouette Canada, a collaborative open digitization initiative from many of Canada’s leading academic libraries, had its official launch today.  This is an exciting development that has the potential to bring thousands of Canadian titles to the Internet.  In order to bring millions of titles to the Internet, however, it seems […]

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June 21, 2006 2 comments News

UK Royal Society Goes Open Access

The Royal Society in London, the world’s oldest learned society, is going open access.  If they can do it, why can’t the Canadian funding agencies such as SSHRC?

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June 21, 2006 Comments are Disabled News