Canada's Music Lobby Buys Government Access 158
An anonymous reader writes "Copyfighting law professor Michael Geist, who previously uncovered financial links between recording industry lobbyists and Canada's Minister of Canadian Heritage Bev Oda (who is responsible for copyright policy), has now identified what big cash donations will get you. He reports that Oda met with the President of the Canadian Recording Industry Association on a monthly basis last year just as the government was preparing copyright reform legislation and Canadian artists were calling for an end to P2P lawsuits. Is it any wonder that Canadians seem likely to lose
their fair use rights?"
Don't worry (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine in the meantime, they have bigger fish to fry (like trying to survive), than to worry about a politically unpopular move to satisfy record company executives.
Canadian Supreme Court (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:but... but Chretien! (Score:3, Interesting)
But, but, they introduce an Accoutability Act and everything! It even has fancy paper!
I find it disenheartening that her response was "it was legal at the time". Shouldn't she be respecting the act NOW, since her government pushed it through? Respect the spririt of the law and all that? It reminded me of contractors who say "what? I did it to code" which basically means "I did the bare minimum to avoid losing my license."
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bribery (Score:3, Interesting)
Longer term I think there should be a declaration on who writes an actual bill not just who sponsors it, and politicians be forced to declare conflict of interest and remove themselves from any proceedings regarding such legislation or face censure - something I'm sure their opponents will enjoy using the next election.
Of course the trouble with all this is that even if media industry looses this round, they'll just try again in a few years. So I still smile when I hear that the music industries sales are still falling despite the growth of online sales.
Re:Sometimes I hate living in America Jr. (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of it is. Except Quebec. There is only one official language there: French. They can pull these shenanigans because they did not sign our constitution.
It is. I live in Winnipeg, which is supposed to be the largest French speaking population outside of Quebec. I have never met anybody who spoke only French and no English in my life. My wife is French, but she doesn't use it other than talking to her family, and they speak English just fine. Why should I bother with another language which I'll rarely ever be able to use, and have no desire to learn? I'd much rather learn ruby or python thank you very much.