"The events of the past six months have demonstrated conclusively that Canadians care about balanced copyright even if the Industry Minister does not. Over the coming months, I firmly believe that we will see the fair copyright movement expand well beyond what has been just built. We will see Canadian musicians, songwriters, artists, and filmmakers speak out against this legislation. We will see companies of all sizes and all sectors speak out against this legislation. We will see the privacy groups, education groups, and consumer rights groups speak out against this legislation. We will see the NDP speak out against this legislation. We will see the Liberals - who are already focusing on the lack of consultation and the prospect of a police state - ultimately identify their Bill C-60 as a better approach and speak out against this legislation. We will see Conservative MPs from coast to coast (including the Conservative candidate from the forthcoming Guelph by-election) wonder why their party has introduced a bill that runs counter to their own policies and (quietly) speak out against this legislation."Geist also has links to numerous editorials out today against this bill from newspapers across the country as well as the Canadian Library Assocation, Canadian Music Creators Coalition, Documentary Organization of Canada, and many, many others.
Also with a good blog post (last night) CBC Radio 3's Lisa Christiansen on some of the other reasons why the 'Music Industry' is losing money..:
"Now that you're filled up with talk of the best music in Canada, it's time to remind you that the future of the music business is 15 pop band ... and none of them made the Polaris long list."..."This last point is just to prove that good music will eventually prevail, no matter what the strange people running large companies think. But then they march to the beat of dollar signs, and that really doesn't move me at all."Finally there is one (also from Radio 3) from Grant Lawrence about the industry's collective tantrum last night.
"Like many of these discussions, it quickly devolved into a bitch-fest of "when I was young" pontificating, most bemoaning being held hostage by music fans taking it for free, and wondering how on earth they'll earn their next paycheque. At one point, a very angry panelist (who is a Toronto punk promoter) grabbed the mic and screamed at the rest of the panel "you people make me wanna puke!" then ranted for five minutes about exactly what everyone else was bitching about."Imagine if you will a football game, with seconds to go your team is down by 5 points. Your quarterback's pass is intercepted but the guy on the other team who intercepted it starts running the wrong way. With his own baffled teammates looking on and unable to catch him, he is nearing your end zone, about to give your team a free touchdown and the win. Then one of your wide receivers comes out of nowhere and tackles him at the one yard line just as the clock hits 00:00.
That wide receiver is symbolic of the way that large media has handled the internet. They took what should have been the best, easiest business model in the history of business and turned it into one of the great shipwrecks in business history.
The approach being proposed by the Conservatives in Canada is almost identical to the approach taken in the U.S. (no surprise there, it was the US that told the Conservatives to do it.) But the approach in the US has failed. In the States, while pursuing policies that have turned their customers and fans into enemies and resulted in countless lawsuits that the US industry has ultimately lost money on - illegal downloads in the US haven't changed. If anything it's more prevalent than it was when these laws were first enacted. This is no doubt one of the consequences of establishing an adversarial relationship with your customers.
While I urge everyone to keep speaking up, and yelling and screaming and shouting about this - given the almost universal nationwide opposition I am confident that this bill can be defeated. However, if it were to pass Canadian media would almost certainly be in worse shape for it - not only for the reasons listed above but because there would be no more reason to have levies on media (CDs, DVDs etc., etc.,) - they were put in place originally to compensate content creators for piracy. If these new copyright laws (complete with their large fines) were to pass those levies would certainly have to be done away with.
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