p2pnet - rss feed: CRIA Laugh-In
p2p news view / p2pnet:- While we were participating in a great launch of In the Public Interest, CRIA was across town promoting two new surveys that seek to link seemingly all teenager problems and recording industry woes with file sharing.
It is tempting to conduct a detailed analysis on how off-base these two new studies are - whether focused on the link between one of the survey sources (Environics, the same firm that run CRIA’ s media campaign), the failure to address the existence of private copying, or the easily countered claims of enormous losses due to primarily to P2P.
Based on the reaction to the CRIA surveys, it seems to me that a full counter isn’t really needed, though. The claims are so over-the-top - as if a reduction in file sharing would somehow lead to less shoplifting or cheating on school tests - that the press release would be more at home as an article in The Onion, than in the traditional media.
It would seem the media agrees: several papers don’ t cover the story and check out the Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen and Vancouver Sun, who all focus primarily on our book launch instead.
Perhaps the most telling response, however, came at the Bill C-60 Open Forum yesterday. The CRIA release was mentioned by one of the speakers.
The entire audience from all sides of the copyright debate just laughed.
Michael Geist
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist[at]uottawa.ca and is on-line at michaelgeist.ca.]
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
Also See:-
Fair and balanced reporting, October 1, 2005
Canadians are thieves: CRIA, September 29, 2005
Canadian Copyright Law: Free!, September 29, 2005
October 2nd, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Thank you!
I hope the audience that laughed is representative of those who will make the decisions on C-60.
I wonder if the readers of the influential German Heise were laughing. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/43015
Our kids don’t deserve their names to be smeared.
October 3rd, 2005 at 1:47 pm
The list of 308 people who will be making the decision about Bill C-60 can be found at:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/senmemb/house/members/CurrentMemberList.asp?Language=E&Parl=38&Ses=1&Sect=hoccur&Order=ProvinceName
One of them is the MP that represents you. Please write them a letter. It can be as simple as a few paragraphs saying that you think that the current direction is not helpful, and quote from this article.
In the room were primarily lawyers and law professors. While we would be better off having these much more informed and balanced folks making the decisions in the public interest, we unfortunately have 308 regular folks (elected politicians) who are being bombarded by the well-paid lobbiests from the extremist who want to maximize copyright to enhance their private/special interests.
On copyright, parliament is really under the control of special interest groups — and the only thing that can correct this is a large outcry from their constituents!