The Power of Backroom Lobbying: How the Music Industry Got a Copyright Extension 109
An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian government's unexpected budget decision to extend
the term of copyright for sound recordings came as a surprise to most copyright watchers, but not the music industry lobby, which was ready with a press release within minutes. How did the industry seemingly know this was coming? Michael Geist reports that records show the extension is the result of backroom lobbying with monthly meetings between senior government officials and music industry lobbyists paving the way for copyright term extension without public consultation or debate.
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should anyone surprised, given the industry's deep pockets and demonstrated penchant for bribery?
IMNSHO anyone "surprised" by this outcome is naïve.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
By this point, anybody who believes capitalist democracy isn't broken is just clinging on to false hope.
Any system that depends on all players being honest and fair is doomed to fail.
Sadly, this includes every possible system that I'm aware of.
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Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Secret talks between government and industry isn't really democracy.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
What ever the law, there is clear and obvious lack of morality here.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
How about mandatory 24-hour surveillance on all politicians, publicly live-streamed? Sure it's an invasion of privacy, but it's an invasion of privacy that could be mandated as the price of wielding the power we grant them. They want to watch us - who can individually do so little of significance, we should be able to watch them *MUCH* more closely.
Of course there's a bit of a "can't get there from here" problem, but periodically opportunities for major revisions do arise.
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How about mandatory 24-hour surveillance on all politicians, publicly live-streamed?
Of course, some might say that then politicians would have to be very careful what they say in case someone takes an out-of-context quote and parades it everywhere and costs them their job. But then again, if they've got nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear.
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Even better - unlike what they try to impose on us, it's completely opt-in. Don't want to be subjected to ubiquitous surveillance? Stay out of politics.
conflict of interest (Score:3)
They can have all the secret talks they like so long as there is no conflict of interest.
I find it hard to believe however that their isn't a conflict of interest when you have the Minister in change of copyright (Minister of Heritage or something or other, which I don't even fathom how they are in change of copyright in the first place) whole election campaign is/was predominantly funded by big media. How is that not a conflict of interest. They'll come out and say they were not influenced, and that they a
Copyrights vs. Patents - a compromise... (Score:3)
Indeed. But maybe we should choose our battles better. Copyright extension - essentially to infinity - seems silly, but the harm from it pales next to the damage being done by the patent system. Bad patents prevent you from innovating on your own ideas - that, yes, have some basis in what came before (what doesn't?). Copyrights just prevent you from 'free as in beer' access to something that we all agree isn't ours. Sure, there have been stupid cases - like Oracle's insistence to exclusive access to Ja
Nonliteral similarity is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad patents prevent you from innovating on your own ideas - that, yes, have some basis in what came before (what doesn't?). Copyrights just prevent you from 'free as in beer' access to something that we all agree isn't ours.
"We all agree"? Not everyone agreed about the ruling in Gaye v. Thicke to apply exclusive rights to the overall feel of a musical composition. Not everyone agreed about the ruling in Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music to penalize someone for having copied a melody completely by accident. What steps should a songwriter take to keep from infringing (and remain a songwriter) in this sort of legal landscape? At least expiry keeps, say, the Shakespeare estate from claiming that the entire world is guilty or liable of "nonliteral similarity" [orain.org]. It acts as one of the checks on "stupid cases".
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the real problem with copyrights is that the "interest groups" are the people benefiting from longer copyrights and most politicians continue to think so.
however, there's the other group as well: the normal people.
the canadians should vote for politicians who think that the people are an interest group and thus should be consulted.
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That's why such groups used to be called "special interest groups," to highlight the fact that their point of view is distinct and different from the general interest of society.
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Sadly, this includes every possible system that I'm aware of.
Then it's not the system that needs to be changed.
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- Include a neutral and none of the above option for both parties and leader votes and make them actually count. If the blank + none of the above votes 'win the election' the whole thing has to start a new with either a new leader of the party if that's what was voted for or switching up the whole party.
- Make campaign goals in to measurable goals. Everyone in office gets minimum wage. And the actual bonus pay out depends on how many % of th
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I say put them under a 100% spending insight regime. If you are working for the public on that level I don't see why they shouldn't be of indisputable good behavior.
With those bonuses they should easily make more then what the 'common man' earns in a year. And apart from the chance of being thrown out when shit hits the fan, it's one of the most stable jobs y
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While we're at it how about making accepting bribery in any form (including campaign contributions and industry "revolving doors") be considered treason - accepting political bribes is almost by definition a betrayal of the people, and by extension the nation. After all the ultimate authority in a democracy is supposed to be the people.
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I think a person in this position should be punished 10 times over every single felony they make instead of walking away (with a bail).
The guy that under stress, drinks and punches a guy in the face is far less accountable for his actions then en well fed, well paid, highly educated (at least I hope they all are) government official who will determine that you will or will not be able to buy and eat a Nestle Kinder Surprise (to name a silly example) OR that we will send plane
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Re: No surprise (Score:2)
We EXPECT the capitalists to maximize profits.
We EXPECT the government to serve our needs and prevent
abuses such as this.
Which one is not meeting our EXPECTATIONS?
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When you respond to corporate lobbying and political advertising that tells you to cut taxes for corporations, elect leaders that promise small government and reduce the regulatory burden for companies
Then you are the problem
The American voter needs to take a long hard look at themselves and ask if following groups like the tea party and promises of applying libertarian principles to government regulation of corporations isn't just slitting our own throats and guaranteeing continued giveaways like this to c
Re: No surprise (Score:2)
And this current system is working oh-so- well?
Seriously, you actually believe your own drivel?
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Well, here's your mistake, then:
You mispelled "their own" in the above.
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Politicians who require millions of dollars to get elected will represent the people who get them into office
We have simply legitimatized the process of bribery by calling corporate contributions 'free speech'
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I also expect capitalists to be human beings, with a code of conduct, and actually behave like real people.
Of course there are those who aren't like this and for those people we need regulation. But assuming everyone is a natural born criminal isn't the way to do it.
Re: No surprise (Score:1)
When did Obama become President of Canada?
TPP makes Obama president of the Pacific (Score:2)
When did Obama become President of Canada?
Since he took office as President of the United States during the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism tends to degenerate into cartels which harm the general public. Even Adam Smith knew that. To prevent this anti-trust legislation needs to be actively enforced. With the current global economy the power of the corporations has increased a lot to the point where it becomes hard for national governments to resist them. Even if that government is the US government. The unfortunate end result of this will either be chaos or a world government.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
Canada is a little different in that right now the present political troubles stem in large part from a first past the post system, when votes on the center to left are being split, while those on the right are not, leading to a majority of seats going to a minority of votes. I'm simplifying a bit, and there are money and corruption issues too, but that's the biggest problem from what I've seen. The Harper government has been able to get away with a lot of this despite consistently getting at best a plurality of votes. Hopefully the next election goes differently, though I'm not holding my breath at this point.
The US, however, is having far more of a problem with money. The FPTP system there is an issue too, but the money is as much or moreso the current issue there.
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Limiting government assumes that civilians will be honest and fair when given (or rather; getting back from government) power to be dishonest and unfair.
Part of the problem is also that "honest" and "fair" are highly subjective terms in the first place.
Another part is that every single social/political system takes just all people to be honest and fair; just one exception will screw up the entire thing for all people.
Capitalism would work great if everybody competes with everybody else and nobody tries to j
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"I can't think of any social/political system which is NOT vulnerable in such a way."
What about getting people out of government as much as possible? An open source algorithm for many of the mechanistic functions government purports to provide.
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Again, getting people OUT of government assumes that people behave more honestly and fairly without government control. There simply is no reason to assume that. If anything we regularly see evidence to the contrary.
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No, no...you misunderstand me. I'm not saying there should be less government control, just that it's done algorithmically.
Think automated DMV processing, automated welfare distribution, automated parolee management, IRS collections/auditing, and so forth.
Of course, the inevitable argument against this is that too much trust is placed into the programmers hands. This is why it would all have to not just be open source, but clearly laid out and audited by many many programmers and non-programmers alike. Fur
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No, no...you misunderstand me. I'm not saying there should be less government control, just that it's done algorithmically.
Think automated DMV processing, automated welfare distribution, automated parolee management, IRS collections/auditing, and so forth.
Of course, the inevitable argument against this is that too much trust is placed into the programmers hands. This is why it would all have to not just be open source, but clearly laid out and audited by many many programmers and non-programmers alike. Further, the algorithms should have built in mechanisms for refinement and improvement.
As a guy who loves designing algorithms, and is very good at it, I must say you put w-a-a-a-y too much faith in algorithms. Even "open source" algorithms. Consider the Federal Government's determinant sentencing rules (with the Orwellian misname of "guidelines"). They are viewed with almost uniform horror by the judges that must use them to calculate sentences, even by Conservative judges who would be most expected to approve of the often Draconian result. There is nothing secret about these sentencing algo
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Interesting. I admit that it's a stretch. Unfortunately, I can't really see any other way towards better government given the premise that all humans are corruptible (which is true).
The best hand-wavy rebuttal I can think of is to incorporate some buzzwords like 'machine learning' and 'crowd-sourcing' type stuff.
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A nice example of Poe's Law in action.
This could be a parody of the thinking of the corporatist shills, and apologists for out present plutocracy, except that the actual shills and apologists often say exactly the same thing, deaf to the ludicrousness of the messages they lip-synch with./p
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It's already picked and mixed, just not picked and mixed the way you like.
A "perfect" democracy is one where each citizen can vote equally on every single choice. Such a system would be impractical to the extreme, so shortcuts have to be (and have been) made; the "picking" and "mixing".
Most of the picking and mixing is done for the wrong reasons, though; for the benefit of the individuals doing the picking and mixing.
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Or is an executive/lobbyist for the music industry (or another big business). Capitalist democracy works VERY well for them. They throw around their capital and the democracy does what they want it to do.
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It's a Republic not a Democracy. If it was a Democracy this wouldn't work so easily.
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Or it's a "democracy" where one dollar = one vote. Those with the most dollar-votes win!
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Canada, the subject of this article, is a Parliamentary Representative Democracy headed by the Queen of Canada. So no, it is not a republic.
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It was always broken. But back then Communism kept them honest. Now that it isn't a threat they think they can do whatever they want.
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at least in terms of their dear music and movie IP, I now refuse to buy and only 'download' my content. even though I can easily afford to pay for it.
see, the thing is, the rich and powerful know about all the loopholes that are 'available' to them. tax havens, ways to get your own private law written AND passed, special exclusive business deals and so on. they laugh at the rules and say 'we have our own and your little rules only apply to the non-powerful, so suck it up and PAY US MORE!'
ok, you rich and
Industry's deep pocket versus the people (Score:1)
Don't the people have a say in this?
I do not care how deeeeep the industry's pocket is, in a democracy the ultimate decider is still the PEOPLE --- those who vote, that is
The industry can only get something going if the people let them - and in this case, the people still have the right to SUE the government (and indirectly sue the politicians) over the passage of the laws
Since this happens in Canada the Canadians have to mobilize themselves to see that such laws be overturned and the politicians who are on
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Don't the people have a say in this?
I do not care how deeeeep the industry's pocket is, in a democracy the ultimate decider is still the PEOPLE --- those who vote, that is
The industry can only get something going if the people let them - and in this case, the people still have the right to SUE the government (and indirectly sue the politicians) over the passage of the laws
Since this happens in Canada the Canadians have to mobilize themselves to see that such laws be overturned and the politicians who are on-the-take be punished accordingly
No the people don't have a say because Canada is a republic, just like the USA, NOT a democracy. We vote for representatives to supposedly make decisions in the best interest of their constituency (which is totally laughable). What we actually have done is created an elected oligarchy where the only people who benefit from anything are the people in power and those with the money to keep them in power.
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While the PM seems to think he is a President, he is actually a Prime Minister to Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada and is responsible to the Parliament of Canada, which is responsible to and, at least the House of Commons, is elected by the Citizens of Canada.
So a Monarchy, not a Republic like most current dictatorships.
I hope that you aren't actually Canadian educated because when I went to school it was stressed that a republic was just not a Monarchy though in cases like N. Korea it's hard to t
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people already voted with their pockets thus GIVING the industry "deep pockets"
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how in some places in the world, we call it bribery and corruption. In other places, it's just "how stuff gets done."
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Actually I was thinking about the perception of cultural differences, from the perspective the US/Canada/Europe. From the US, when this happens in Mexico or China we call it corruption and bribery. When it happens in the US, Canada, or Europe, we call it politics.
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Interesting how in some places in the world, we call it bribery and corruption. In other places, it's just "how stuff gets done."
It's still graft either way. Think of all the problems caused by money buying influence in government. Now imagine how terrible it would be if businesses did it to each other too. The US government might be bought and paid for, but at least we have quite low levels of business-to-business bribery and corruption. My company can bid on projects and stand a very good chance of being evaluated on the quality of our bid and our reputation. That isn't true in a lot of places.
I can't imagine how ridiculous
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They probably also just happened to have a draft of how the legislation should be written, and just happened to be in the room with the minister and his deputies as they discussed when to roll it out.
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I think we need a term for this. Something like "Lawyola"
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Does it really matter... (Score:2, Funny)
...when the copyright on Celine Dion's horrible music expires anyway?
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When you go to hell, you get to listen to it forever, and Satan doesn't have to pay any royalties...
here's what really happened... (Score:5, Informative)
from the same site.. interesting insight into what really happened... http://www.michaelgeist.ca/201... [michaelgeist.ca]
the songs themselves had a longer copyright term than the recordings of them. an enterprising company started selling music that fell in that gap.. songwriters still got paid but the original distributing labels (sony, universal, etc) got left out.. they got mad and did what big companies with governments wrapped around their corporate fingers do.. they got laws changed the way they want.
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Dude. There was some international treaty where the US and Europe had it so that if any one of them raised the copyright time limit the other would automatically raise it as well. I dread to think if Canada and the US have a similar treaty.
The lobby's doing its job (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a disgusting, dirty, sordid job, and deserves all the contempt it gets.
But the real traitors are the politicians in bed with those lobbyists. Supposedly representing the greater interest, in reality just serving their own greed.
Those should go to jail, no less.
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In Canada standing up against the Queen is treason. Selling out your own people to often foreign corporations is just business as usual.
They write both press releases (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying corporate lobbyists aren't burrowed like ticks into every major government, because they are. But let's be real. They were "ready with a press release within minutes" because they wrote both press releases, and read the one that fit the situation. That's how it works.
Re:They write both press releases (Score:5, Insightful)
They were "ready with a press release within minutes" because they wrote both press releases, and read the one that fit the situation. That's how it works.
You mean the government's and their own?
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Sort of like this [xkcd.com]? Is there, somewhere, an unpublished music industry press release decrying the release of all works into the public domain and the abolishment of copyright?
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They were ready with the press release because they wrote the legislation.
How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bribes.
Calling it lobbying is just sugar coating it.
The Usual Suspects (Score:1)
Freudian slip (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason I read that as "paying the way for copyright term extension". After realising that I'd misread it I corrected myself. Then corrected myself again when I realised that the misread version makes more sense.
Lobbying? Don't mince words. Someone got paid off. (Score:3)
Lobbying is a polite name for bribery and coercion.
Fuck politeness.
If you have sufficient funds, you can buy any law you want.
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I can not make up from this post if you are trolling, but most of us don't mind paying for music. But if it comes to the restrictions that come with it. And how hard it is to have 1 consistent library of music we can listen to and enjoy anywhere we like.
Specifically here we get stuff like you could never remix a song unless the copy
Theft of the Public Domain (Score:2)
Please call it what it is: theft from the public domain. It is theft of public property, plain an simple. They are stealing from Canadian citizens that which is rightfully theirs. A reasonable solution might be to treat copyright in a manner similar to a natural resource. Have the owners pay for the extended exclusive copyrights. That's a win/win solution. Hey, you could even put all of the copyrights that are expiring up for public auction, like we do for access to RF spectrum in the U.S. Have a min
In a nutshell ... (Score:2)
Michael Geist reports that records show the extension is the result of backroom lobbying with monthly meetings between senior government officials and music industry lobbyists paving the way for copyright term extension without public consultation or debate.
Because that pretty much sums up the way the Harper government operates -- and has, ever since they were elected.
Obligatory Geocracy Clarification (Score:2)
Since We Don't Have Sonny Bono (Score:1)