p2pnet - rss feed: Hollywood’s Canadian MP
Canadian fundraiser embroils U.S. studios, labels
TORONTO — U.S. studios and music labels were drawn into the Canadian federal election fray Tuesday after coming under fire for a planned Jan. 19 fundraiser for a key Liberal member of Parliament.
The controversy follows Sarmite Bulte, a federal M.P. and parliamentary secretary for Canadian Heritage who has backed U.S.-style copyright laws, issuing an invitation for a CAN$250-a-plate fundraiser hosted by the Canadian Recording Industry Assn. and the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Assn. The event was scheduled to take place four days before Canadians vote for a new federal government on Jan. 23.
The CMPD, the CRIA and other copyright holders have long pushed Canada to tighten lax laws against copyright piracy. A copyright reform bill that Bulte helped write recently died when the ruling Liberal Party dissolved Parliament and called a national election for Jan. 23.
p2p news / p2pnet: The sheer, blinding arrogance of the Big Four Organized Music labels is hard to credit. It apparently knows no bounds. And nor, seemingly, does the greed of Sam Bulte, "a dirty Canadian Member of Parliament who took funds from entertainment company and later introduced extreme copyright laws," as Cory Doctorow puts it in a boing boing post.
The ‘Canadian fundraiser’ item at the top isn’t from a Canadian newspaper. It’s from the Hollywood Reporter, if you can believe it.
Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has been blogging about Bulte’s shockingly blatant involvement with appendages of the Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI Organized Music cartel (none of whom have a significant presence in Canada) for some time.
Bulte likes to hang out with the likes of CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) spinster Graham Henderson: and the fundraiser mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter story failed to mention the star turn at the occasion was to have been Henderson’s significant other, Cowboy Junkies singer Margo Timmins.
Two years ago, one could confidently have expected Bulte to get away with this scott free. But in 2006, with the involvement of the unofficial online news gathering and reporting community, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks.
Below, in date order, are three posts from Geist’s web page >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Cleaning Up Copyright
With both prospective Canadian Heritage Ministers accepting copyright lobby cash (see The Sad Reality of Copyright Policy In Canada, Campaign Contributions, Tipping Point, That’s What Friends Are For) and the funders making it clear that they are in the market for more (see Business As Usual), it is time to clean up copyright in Canada. The election campaign provides the perfect time to do so. The short term solution is obvious - Bulte should cancel the January 19th fundraiser and apologize to her constituents and the Canadian public.
The longer term solution was hinted at in Jack Kapica’s article in the Globe that is referenced on Bourque. Kapica argued that:
"Should the outcome of the election be favourable for the morally besieged Liberal Party, perhaps leader Paul Martin should consider rewarding Ms. Bulte’s hard work and loyalty with a different portfolio entirely, if only to show that Canadians won’t dance to every tune the Americans wish to play and charge us for."
I would go further. I think the party leaders should take a Copyright Pledge. It would hold that:
No Member of Parliament who has accepted financial contributions or other benefits from (i) a copyright lobby group, (ii) its corporate members, or (iii) senior executives as well as (iv) a copyright collective shall serve as Minister of Canadian Heritage or as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, nor sit on any legislative committee (parliamentary or standing committees) conducting hearings or deliberations on copyright matters.
The time has come to clean up Canadian copyright policy. Martin, Harper, and Layton should take the Copyright Pledge.
Jan. 04/06
The Sad Reality of Copyright Policy in Canada
As I noted yesterday, I have spent considerable time writing and speaking on balanced copyright, including pulling together a book which features 19 professors from across Canada speaking out on the need for the public interest in copyright policy (the book is titled In the Public Interest and is available for purchase or as a free download under a Creative Commons Canada license).
Yet the revelations of recent days (Campaign Contributions, Tipping Point, That’s What Friends Are For) suggest that we are not in a balanced debate searching for the policies that are best for all Canadians. Sam Bulte accepts thousands of dollars in contributions from the stronger copyright law lobby and brazenly holds a fundraiser for more money days before the election. The funders justify their contributions by noting that they needed to avoid the annual financing cap and that they balance the process by funding MPs from both parties.
Indeed this last point requires further discussion as the most striking revelation in the Hollywood Reporter article is that the "U.S. interests" (as they are appropriately described in the article) have hedged their bets by also funding Conservative Bev Oda (the Canadian Heritage critic) and James Rajotte. The Oda funding is noteworthy because it suggests that the leading candidates for the Minister of Canadian Heritage position from both the Liberals and Conservatives have accepted copyright lobby campaign contributions.
In fact, notwithstanding the Conservatives’ claims of accountability, new research indicates that Oda is no stranger to funding support. According to her 2004 riding association data, she accepted thousands of dollars in contributions from the broadcast lobby. Corporate supporters included Alliance Atlantis, Astral Media, Canwest, and CHUM. Oda also attracted a "who’s who" of the broadcast community, including Edward Rogers, Leonard Asper, John Cassaday, Douglas Bassett, Andre Bureau, Phil Lind, Gary Slaight, Jay Switzer, Tony Viner, and Glenn O’Farrell, who each ponied up $250 a person at a May 2004 fundraiser. That event presumably went so well that another fundraiser was held for Oda in May 2005 in Toronto. It was sponsored by Glenn O’Farrell (Canadian Broadcaster Association), Phil Lind (Rogers), and John Cassaday (Corus). We will have to wait for the 2005 annual return to learn about the financial success of that event.
While the broadcaster copyright concerns may differ from the entertainment industry interests, the problem is the same - Canadian copyright policy has degenerated into a funding battle between large corporate interests (whether foreign or Canadian) with little regard for the interests of the actual artists, creators, users, and the general public. I may be naive, but this is not supposed to happen in Canada. We can do better - see the next posting titled Cleaning Up Copyright for how.
Jan. 04/06
Business As Usual
Kudos to the Hollywood Reporter for jumping in this morning and covering (brief display) the Bulte story with an enlightening piece that includes comments from Douglas Frith of the CMPDA (movies) and Graham Henderson of CRIA. Leaving aside Frith’s bizarre comment that on copyright "Canada is beginning to look like the Libya of the OECD", the message from the Hollywood interests boils down to four points:
What we are doing is legal. Says Henderson: "Artists and creators and people investing in them are investing in a champion."
We were forced to hold the fundraiser days before the election. Frith notes that new campaign finance laws resulted in some MPs (presumably including Bulte) hitting their cap in 2005, thus necessitating holding off until 2006.
We don’t just fund Bulte. Frith admits that they have also funded two Conservatives (Rajotte and Oda - see The Sad Reality of Copyright Policy in Canada posting for more on Oda). Henderson practically calls out to MPs who want some recording industry cash stating that "this is an issue of principle, not party. We’re delighted to find other parliamentarians who strongly support the rights of artists to be protected from theft."
We need to lobby. Frith acknowledges that there are divisions in cabinet over stronger copyright laws thereby necessitating what he euphimistically describes as "coalition building."
Also See:
boing boing - Hollywood’s Canadian Member of Parliament, January 4, 2005
Hollywood Reporter - Canadian fundraiser embroils U.S. studios, labels, January 4, 2005
significant other - Sam Bulte’s fund raiser, December 23, 2005
January 4th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Where was all the posting of news when this crap was being pulled in the US? It is exaclty the same sort of thing that was pulled here.
There was next to nothing in the line of debate on it, there was no asking for or representing of the public in the copyright issues or the DMCA passage.
It is after all the reason for copyright to exist in the first place. The limited protection time before the copyright becomes public domain. A “limited protection time” that has become perverted in its length to the point that nothing is making it to public domain.
While money is talking, it is apparent that the greatest thieves and crooks set in positions of power to make laws. The victim is nothing short of the public that voted them into that position of power.
January 4th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
In every “democracy” in the world, there are usually two major political parties. The LameScream press usually emphasise relatively few “important issues” with which these main parties use to attack each other. The public is then decieved into voting for one of these parties over the others. The major partie in most countries where voting is allowed are usually funded by the same groups. To really achieve true reform, people need to reasearch and vote for the lessor known candidate of lessor known parties. This is as simple as getting a copy of a sample ballot from an area and researching each candidate (and party) via the Internet. Until people quit swallowing the LameScream crap hook line and sinker, we will continue to vote for people from the same lame and corrupt political parties.
January 5th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I sent a message to all the party leaders, and to the candidates in my riding of Ottawa South.
HTML version
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1664
Text version that contains the party leader email addresses
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/discuss/6001
I have received a response from one party leader so far, but if everyone who reads this sends a similar message to their candidates and the party leaders, we might be able to push this issue such that they will all take the pledge. Please send me copies of any messages you might get back.
Watch the “Canada Votes 2006″ BLOG on Digital-copyright.ca for any pledges I receive.
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/election2006/blog
January 5th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
There were people who knew about this back in 1994-1998 when this was happening in the USA. The problem is that getting people excited about these things and getting them involved in politics is quite hard. This is especially true of technology law where far too many technical people are “technological determinists” who believe that the laws of the land don’t matter, and that they can just “route around bad laws”.
We need to fix this in ourselves. Having Canada have different laws than those promoted by the USTR (Remember: Don’t let Canadians be anti-US as it is not like it is American citizens that are doing this stupidity, but an unelected set of government agencies from an unelected government — don’t get me started on voting machine anomolies in recent US “elections”).
Anyone in the Toronto area or that knows someone in the Toronto area should be pointing them to the Bulte issue. There is a very close race between her and Peggy Nash, so if everyone with an interest in this issue convinced people to vote strategically for Ms. Nash it would make a huge difference (Note: I don’t normally support strategic voting, but until we have a modernized electoral system in Canada it is hard to avoid it. If only people who voted strategically did the research to be voting strategically for –or against– someone who had a chance of winning).