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Oda Announces Broadcast Study

Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda has announced that the government is commissioning a major study on the future of television and radio regulation.  Oda claims that "other nations began to build the policy framework for the new digital world decades ago.  Unfortunately Canada did not."  It would be interesting to […]

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June 12, 2006 1 comment News

Statistics Canada on Culture

Statistics Canada is out today with several cultural studies including a regular culture periodical, an employment analysis, and a report that Canada’s cultural goods deficit grew in 2005.

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June 12, 2006 1 comment News

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