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CRIA’s Lobby Effort: The Untold Story

On the heels of last week's posting on election financial support for Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda, the Hill Times runs a special op-ed I've written that focuses on an unreported CRIA lobby effort from earlier this year (Hill Times version, homepage version).  According to information released under the Access to Information Act, at 10:01 in the morning of February 6, 2006, at the precise moment that a new Conservative cabinet was being sworn into office at Rideau Hall, David Dyer, a senior consultant with the Capital Hill Group and a registered lobbyist for the Canadian Recording Industry Association, sent an email to Patricia Neri, the Director General of Canadian Heritage's Copyright Policy Branch. 

The email included a suggested outline for a March 2nd event focused on copyright reform.  It envisioned a meeting with the Canadian Heritage Deputy Minister Judith LaRoque, two hours of presentations from speakers sympathetic to CRIA's position, lunch with deputy ministers from Heritage, Industry, and International Trade, and a private meeting with the soon-to-named Minister of Canadian Heritage.

One month later, virtually the identical scenario played itself out in Canadian Heritage's Gatineau offices and in the private dining room of a swank nearby restaurant.

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June 11, 2006 7 comments Columns

Sweden Considers Legalizing P2P File Sharing

Sweden's Justice Minister has said that the country is open to legalizing P2P file sharing.  The Minister raised the prospect of reversing the current ban, noting that the law has not reduced file sharing and that it could be replaced with a compensatory levy.

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June 9, 2006 3 comments News

Access Copyright Responds

Access Copyright is quoted in this article on the Captain Copyright controversy, responding to the concerns regarding the site and its approach to copyright education.

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June 9, 2006 Comments are Disabled News

Oda and the Copyright Pledge

Readers of this blog will recall the Sam Bulte controversy from earlier this year and my resulting call that politicians take the "copyright pledge" under which they would agree not to serve as Minister of Canadian Heritage, Parliamentary Secretary, or sit on the Canadian Heritage Parliamentary Committee if they accepted […]

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June 8, 2006 14 comments News

Sloppy Thinking

While Captain Copyright has garnered significant attention over the past week, another group of educators have been targeted with a similar message.  CRIA's Graham Henderson recently published an opinion piece in the Spring 2006 issue of the Recorder, the Journal of the Ontario Music Educators' Association titled Music Students Face Uncertain Prospects Because of Illegal Downloading. I can't find an online version of the article, but I think it is does merit comment.  As the title suggests, CRIA's message for Canada's music educators is that many young people who dream of a career in music face severely limited prospects.  The article says that "this is neither for lack of talent nor an eager audience. Both of those ingredients are as strong or stronger than ever, thanks in good part to the excellent work of Canada's music educators.  The threat to music students' future success comes from rampant and uncurbed music file-swapping on the Internet."

This passage represents the high water mark of the article.

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June 8, 2006 3 comments News