Post Tagged with: "heritage"

Separating Fact from Fiction: My Fair Copyright Proposals

With a copyright bill only weeks away, thousands of Canadians are again speaking out for a fair, balanced approach.  The public interest in copyright has predictably led to mischaracterizations of fair copyright as some claim that it is really about wanting everything for free or about opposing copyright reform.  This increasingly leads to a blame the user mentality – the award-winning Vancouver Film School video on DRM and the Amazon Kindle incident from last summer discussed in yesterday's post is labeled as "ridiculous fear-mongering" (yet for years rights holders opened every movie with this film) or users are said to ignore creator concerns with a "gimme" attitude (yet the Writers Union recently urged its members to lobby MPs by claiming that flexible fair dealing would legalize theft). 

The reality is that inflammatory and inaccurate rhetoric can be found on both creator and consumer-focused sites. There are undoubtedly some who use fair copyright to justify obvious cases of infringement, just as there are those that use copyright reform to preserve outdated business models or to guard against uses that the Supreme Court of Canada would surely view as fair dealing. Even a cursory search for online discussion demonstrates that claims that "sensationalist campaigning" on Canadian copyright is primarily found on sites such as mine are simply wrong. 

So yet again in an effort to separate fact from fiction, here is my submission to the copyright consultation from last summer.  It doesn't call for everything to be free, it calls for WIPO implementation, and it emphasizes that updating the law means accounting for both creator and consumer needs.  As I've discussed over the past ten days, sources say Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore has largely rejected this submission – along with thousands of other submissions calling for a fair copyright approach – but it can't hurt to reiterate what those reforms could look like.  For the many Canadians whose views may also be ignored, now is a good time to remind their MPs and the Ministers what they think the copyright bill should contain.

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May 14, 2010 67 comments News

Liberals Name Shadow Cabinet

The Liberals have named their shadow cabinet for the upcoming parliamentary session.  Gerard Kennedy (who supported the copyright pledge) will be the Industry critic.  Hedy Fry, who conducted roundtables on copyright over the summer, takes over as Canadian Heritage critic.

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November 14, 2008 1 comment News

Government Appoints Parliamentary Secretaries

The Government on Friday appointed new parliamentary secretaries for both Industry and Canadian Heritage.  Mike Lake, an Alberta MP from Edmonton, is the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, and Dean Del Mastro, a Peterborough, Ontario MP is the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

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November 8, 2008 Comments are Disabled News

Protests Mount over C-10

The protests are beginning to mount over Bill C-10, which includes an overlooked provision that would allow the Canadian Heritage Minister to deny tax credits to films or television show projects deemed offensive.  A Facebook group on the issue has attracted hundreds of members in a matter of hours.

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February 28, 2008 14 comments News

Industry and Heritage

Question period in the House of Commons today, the last of the session, featured the following exchange:

"Ms. Bev Oda (Durham, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Canada has a world class Internet infrastructure in our schools but the heritage minister's new copyright legislation makes it restrictive, onerous and possibly more costly for schools, teachers and students to download on-line educational material.

This legislation will make routine classroom activities illegal. Why do the government and the minister want to make our students and teachers pay more for materials they are using now or make them criminals under a new copyright law?

Hon. Liza Frulla (Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for Status of Women, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. opposition member knows very well that we promised to table the copyright law in June, which we did. We also said that as far as the education matter is concerned, we will study it and focus on it solely after second reading of the bill. We will study the education matter because it does not have consensus.

I also want to say to my hon. critic that children can be in school but once they become researchers and authors, they also to have their copyrights reserved and paid for."

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June 29, 2005 Comments are Disabled News