The Globe on How C-32 Will Affect Canadian Culture
November 17, 2010
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Episode 254: Looking Back at the Year in Canadian Digital Law and Policy
byMichael Geist

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CanCon or Can’tCopyCon?
Gibson is absolutely right about the borderless Internet. If a government really wants to nurture Canadian arts, it will nurture Canadian artists and nurture the arts in Canada, i.e., where they will be immediately experienced by Canadians, some of whom might become Canadian artists. Attempting to nurture Canadian arts by means of copyright legislation might benefit the parasitic copyright-collective industry with its lawyers and staffers or the publishing industry with its lawyers and staffers, but it does little for Canadian arts, Canadian artists, or the arts in Canada. And while we are at it, open up Canadians’ digital access to the rest of the world and vice versa by enhancing our infrastructure. In short, sing locally and think globally.
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I think that the greatest thing that the government can do (and it already does it quite well) is to help Canadian artists to become known to the public. Like in helping them with their first recordings, letting them some air time and interviews with CBC and so on.
I’ll give just one example: Ndidi Onukwulu. After a fabulous ameeeriiikaan career of singing in the streets and in open mic bars in New York, she had to come back home to get her first album out. And the government helped. And CBC aired her. And I heard it. And I bought that album.
So yes Canada is different than US. And pleease lets keep it this way.
Nap.