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Geist on Canadian Copyright
In case any readers of Slaw are not receiving the posts by Professor Michael Geist on copyright law and his recent posts on political fundraising donations allegedly being made by the pro-industry/copyright owners lobby to Canadian politicians directly involved in affecting copyright policy, his postings are worthwhile reading. One of his most recent is called “Cleaning up Copyright” and proposes that politicians take a pledge to not serve as Minister of Canadian Heritage or sit on relevant committees if they have taken financial contributions from copyright lobby groups.
It’s too bad Slashdot is unlikely to pick this story up, as is the main stream media. It’s not surprising they ignore things like this, even though they are technically still legal to donate lots of money to a candidate. Last week the National Post spun a headline into the obscenely wrong by claiming that 68% of Canadians want tougher copyright law, when the CRIA poll was only able to coax 32% to say that, with 91% wanting artists work to be protected onilne.
We are our own media, and are slowly replacing the mainstream media.
We have a specific BLOG topic for Parkdale–High Park: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/edid/35068
I hope people will get actively involved in the politics of this area of policy. There really are more of us than there are of “them”. Please sign our petition, talk to your candidates to convince them to take the “copyright pledge”, talk to them to ensure that they realize that the intermediaries (CRIA, CAAST, CMPDA) do not represent Canadian creators.