Canadian record labels to Canadian Parliament: we want to be able to control search engines, social networking, blogs, video sites, and community sites. Oh, and we want an iPod tax.

Michael Geist sez, "The Canadian music industry is scheduled to appear before a Parliamentary committee today with some of the most radical demands to date that would effectively create liability for social networking sites, search engines, blogging platforms, and video sites such as Google, Facebook and Reddit. As if that were not enough, the industry is also calling for a new iPod tax, an extension in the term of copyright, a removal of protections for user generated content, parody, and satire, as well as an increase in statutory damage awards. Taken together, the Canadian music industry demands make SOPA look like minor tinkering with the law."

Canadian Music Industry Takes Aim At Google, Facebook, Reddit & Tech Startups With Bill C-11 Demands

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: c-11 • canada • Copyfight • corporatism • free speech • law • politics • web theory

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satn

I demand felatio whenever I want it, my debit account set at infinity, a new car every time the old one runs out of gas, a different private chef for every meal of the day, a gold toilet, and platinum toilet paper.

Thanks!
- http://www.facebook.com/aaron.klayer Aaron Klayer
  
  Platinum toilet paper? Would that work like the three sea shells?
hassenpfeffer

And to think that up ’til recently I considered Canada a reasonable place to flee if/when things got too bad in the US. Between this and the Keystone XL pipeline, though, it’s as though Canada’s suddenly decided it needs to be as mean and unilateral as its bully neighbor to the south.
- ObstacleMan
  
  Please don’t judge us all based on the american infulenced CIRAA. :P
  
  I’d really like to see Google, Facebook, etc block all copyrighted content just as these guys want and turn to promoting independent artists. The best way to deal with these companies and industry lobbiest organizations is to starve them out so they have no money for lobbying.
- Jesse Ewles
  
  Our current PM is a giant douche. He does something crazy like this, almost every week. The opposition parties are in the process of investigating him for election fraud.
  http://shitharperdid.ca.nyud.net/
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Even from the otherside of the pond Canada is an attractive proposition… not so much recently.
- Guest
  
  yes, and judging an entire country, it’s people, and it’s laws by one proposed bill, allbeit crappy as it is, is completely reasonable. It’s too bad people see things so simply and have to group everyone in one lump so their brain can comprehend it. It’s human nature, I’m not dumping on you. Try to remember we are all individuals.
  
  PS. We still don’t carry guns and have school shootouts every week, burn holy books, or pee on dead enemy soldiers.
http://profile.yahoo.com/URKDDCG37PAAUB7F3E5OUEXJRE NoOneSpecific

Stephen Harper is a puppet to the USA and their corporate sycophants. His only true motivation is personal greed. If his majority bows to this insanity I don’t know if I can live here any longer.
- peterblue11
  
  hmm , did he ever mention the word “bunga-bunga” ? u sure hes not partly of italian descent?
http://www.facebook.com/aaron.klayer Aaron Klayer

This is a negotiation strategy.

Have outrageous demands that you know that you won’t get to use as concessions to get the less ludicrous demands that you actually want.
- Don Dietrich
  
  …only slightly less ludicrous. The industry runs the risk of being shut out entirely because of their unreasonableness. Unfortunately, they have a sympathetic ear in the current government.
  
  Having said that, there are some pretty good provisions in the Copyright Bill, especially those that apply to fair dealing for education. Those need to be strengthened but they are better than what Canada has had in the past.
  - digi_owl
    
    And they have said ear because the west handed its production capacity over to Asia in the name of globalism, going all in on the idea of the knowledge economy. Never mind that this was already tried in the 1700-1800s, with the end result of some massive new nations being formed.
hassenpfeffer

I think my meta-issue is, How is it that the current-day US fought a revolution against the Brits while current-day Canada slowly drifted away from the Brits, and now both of us AND the Brits are in the same reeking broth of plutocracy, one-way transparency into individual citizens’ lives from the gov’t/corporate side, and the notion that a piece of paper on file in, say, Delaware has more rights than a living, breathing human being? /rhetorical rant, sorry
TimRowledge

Wouldn’t it be simpler to simply close down the damn “music” industry altogether? It’s not like they seem able to provide anything of value to anyone on any side of the deal.
- cthulku
  
  Ah, but they provide a great deal of value. To shareholders.
  
  [sarcasm]
  
  Which is the only reason why any industry exists, silly!
  
  [/sarcasm]
  - pKp
    
    That is patently false. The problem, as always, is with the assholes at the top, who don’t understand the industry they’re leading because they only see it as a way to make a quick buck, same as any manufacturing/service-selling process. Labels, producers, marketing people, manufacturers, etc. are still a vital part of popular culture.
    
    And yeah, I know that some people do well without labels. That being said, the most popular examples of this (Radiohead, Trent Reznor/NIN, Amanda Palmer) are all products of the “old” system. They’ve spent years dealing with labels before they had enough clout to get out of Dodge. The only person I’m aware of who made a successful career without ever being signed on a label is Jonathan Coulton.
    
    So don’t be too quick in condemning the music industry. As a musician, I find it comforting to know that there are people out there who might one day want to pay me for the privilege of distributing my music. Of course most of them are greedy assholes, but some of these people are genuinely interested in artists, and they don’t deserve to be lumped in with the greedy bastards who lead the music industry.
kingsleyd

I do believe that’s the Canadian music industry’s third strike. I won’t be buying any more CDs or DVDs or attending any more movies after the outrages of the last year or so here in Canada and south of the border. They can just shovel all that crap back where it belongs.
- elix
  
  You’re still buying them? The copyright levy (that didn’t go to artists) wasn’t enough? Or the scandal about the NOW series of albums being technically illegal? Or the repeated attempts to turn Canada’s copyright laws into everything they could cram into the DMCA and then everything they couldn’t get past Congress?
  
  Fuck the IP industry.
  - kingsleyd
    
    What can I say, I’m a weak mutha.
Nadreck

“Canadian music industry” is more properly pronounced “Departments of American music companies with the word ‘Canadian’ in their name”. Any other connection to music produced in Canada is statistically insignificant.
Shinkuhadoken

Boycott RIAA (don’t be fooled by the C in front). Support independent music.
Ryan Lenethen

Translation: We want an infinite amount of free money. k thx bye!

They give parasites a bad name.

Though to be fair, it is the system that allows for this nonsense. It is not that they are evil (not ruling it out however) but the fact they are able to do this, and so they do. The lawyers and lobbyists just feed off this system as well. Everyone gets paid, and only the public looses.
signsofrain

While I’m optimistic that this crazy-ass legislation will never become actual law (Geist and co. have done a great job mobilizing the people who realize just how batshit crazy this stuff is) I don’t like the overall direction of things. The longer the internet is around, the more corporations and governments realize that unrestricted communication is bad for the longevity of business models (they hate innovation, it means they have to come up with new ideas instead of sitting on their asses collecting checks) and bad for fear/propaganda-based control of populations. The internet threatens our oldest established power bases, and they are going to do their utmost to de-fang it. Before that happens, we need to build a decentralized citizen-run communications infrastructure that nobody can shut down.
BBNinja

At first I was shocked and outraged but then I read it again… “Canadian music industry”.

Nevermind.
blissfulight

Head to the torrents!
http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius

The only way to counter these extreme demands is to make extreme demands of your own:

* Reduce copyright protection to 10 years without re-registration
* Institute re-registration fees of $100,000 per unique work
* Define non-derivative works as anything containing anything original
* Complete amnesty from copyright laws for anyone under the age of 18, in the military, in the government and over the age of 65
* Compulsory statutory rates on synchronization rights so you can sync music to video without having to negotiate a contract with the label
* Make illegal any contracts between musician and label that re-assign their copyright for more than 10 years
* Automatically release works into the public domain in any case where the original artists are all dead (no reassignment of copyright to children)
* Eliminate new copyrights for re-mastered works
* Eliminate new copyrights for translated works
- ocatagon
  
  Those aren’t extreme demands.
http://www.facebook.com/george.menzies George Menzies

At .01 cents a second for listening to a song of the net, a no keeper no record down load, for 3 minute song they could get 1.8 cents, for an hour that’s 36 cents and for 4 hours, an evening of music listening, 1 dollar and 46 cents. For a keeper copy they could charge .1 cent a second, that would be 18 cents for a 3 minute song and then everybody gets their cut. OK, so what’s the problem.