It is taking a lot of restraint not to use language like "first against the wall" and "treasonous" when writing this entry. But really, that kind of colourful language only lets the reader know that the writer is totally rabid.

And its not like I am rabid about copyright issues. Me? Oh no.

At any rate, Sarmite Bulte, Liberal candidate for Parkdale-High Park is basically taking bribes from the strong IP lobbies (music, movies, television and of course pharma) in the form of campaign financing. When you look at Sams involvement in the copyright issue, you see that she only really cares about copyright when given money by the lobbyists. A prime example is this:

Ms. Bulte claims that “Nobody influences me. Nobody can buy me.” I’ll take her at her word. But I am concerned at Ms. Bulte’s recent fascination with copyright law. Ms. Bulte was first elected in 1997. According to Elections Canada’s candidate contributions and expense reports, her campaign contributions totaled $67,423. Corporate sponsors aplenty, but no big copyright. And, interestingly, I cannot find reference to Ms. Bulte even uttering the word “copyright” until the dying months of that Parliament, when, as a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, she asked a few questions in a working sessions on a study of the Canadian book industry. She’d have to have slept pretty hard to avoid talking copyright there.

In the November, 2000, election, Ms. Bulte had managed to scoop up over $81,000 in campaign financing. And now some of the big copyright names are there: SOCAN, the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, Alliance Communications Corporation, Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc., Epitome Pictures, Chapters, CanWest Global, CTV, Rogers Communications, Baton Broadcasting, Good Earth Ventures and the Astral Television Network. Interestingly, there are a number of other IP intensive industries represented: beer (Molsons), wine (Pilliteri Estates Winery) and pharmaceuticals (Pfizer and Apotex – makes you wonder what she said to these two!). And when the 37th Parliament began on January 29, 2001, voila, Ms. Bulte began publicly uttering pro-copyright platitudes.

This is from the Creative Commons licensed blog Copyright Watch which is about to make my RSS feed in a big way.

In fact, you should go read that blog entry if you are interested in copyright in any way, shape, or form. It is very informative about how our representatives in this government are being manipulated by the big content industries. To see someone so shallowly, and if I may use the word, transparently in the pockets of big business makes me sick to my stomach.

She is essentially giving a big "Fuck You" to all Canadians, and her constituents especially. She is saying that the rights of the individual Canadian are trumped by the rights of big corporations. Now, I am not talking about the right to freely download music (or infringe on copyright). I am talking about far more important rights then that. The IP lobbies are using the music/movies downloading issue as the bait to a far more sinister hook to control the means of content creation and distribution. They understand that their models, especially the distribution models, are fuct. They want copyright laws that make it easy to take down threats and protect their business models. A classic example here is the webcasting industry. In a report to the senate about mandatory licensing for all webcasters the RIAA told the senate that a license should be around $1,000,000 because that is "what the market could bear". At this time, around 90% of all webcasters were private individuals, and lots of them were playing content that was not under copyright control from the RIAA.

The big content industries are not worried about kids downloading music. They are worried about kids downloading music, remixing, reinterpreting, and re releasing it for themselves. Downloading music isn't the issue. The issue is that someone can create, edit, and release their own content completely free of the shackles of the movie and music industries. And it is getting easier all the time.

If you define culture as "The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought." (Answers.com definition for 'culture') then you can see that a majority of our culture is owned, and the rules of ownership are getting stricter all the time. 20 year copyright terms are fair, 90 year terms of copyright that are extended every time Steamboat Willy gets close to being public domain are insane. Content creators deserve to maintain a monopoly on their work for a period of time as this is the incentive that our culture uses to keep our artists, musicians and film makers creating. But the monopoly shouldn't be for the lifetime of the artist plus 75 years. All art is generated from the past. The problem is that currently, if an artist is inspired by a video game, TV show, movie or other media, they have to be extremely careful about how they express this inspiration, lest they get a Cease and Desist order. Frequently it doesn't matter if the artist has fair use rights or not. A Cease and Desist sent to the artist (or their ISP) is enough to kibosh any work. How many artists have the money to pay for copyright lawyers?

In fact, the only thing that the big content industries have that the rest of us don't are vast teams of copyright lawyers, and politicians in their pockets. And you better believe me, they know their advantage, and are using it.

So fuck you very much Mrs. Bulte. You are whoring your countrys culture out to primarily American corporate interests. (How Canadian is the Canadian Recording Industry Association if it is also made up by the same members of the Recording Industry Association of America?) Don't let the door hit you on your way out.