Oda and the copyright lobby
p2p news / p2pnet: A couple of weeks I blogged about Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda’s fundraising during the last federal election. Days before the vote, as the Conservative momentum made her a likely Cabinet minister, Oda accepted contributions from many in the copyright lobby including Universal Music (tied for her third largest external contributor), the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, the Entertainment Software Alliance, the Canadian Music Publishers Association, and CRIA’s own Graham Henderson.
Oda’s riding association has now released data for the full 2005 calendar year and her support from the copyright lobby is even more extensive than this initial list.
While there is a similar list of individual donors, the corporate list is even more telling, particularly since those donations will no longer be permitted once the Federal Accountability Act becomes law. Financial supporters of Oda’s Durham riding association last year included:
- copyright lobby groups – CRIA, CFTA, CMPDA, CMMRA, Director’s Guild, Entertainment Software Association, SOCAN, Writer’s Guild
- record labels – BMG Canada, EMI Canada, Sony Music Canada, Warner Music Canada, Universal Music Canada
- broadcasters – Corus, Vision TV
- cable companies – CCTA, Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw
- lobby firms – Temple Scott Associates, Capitol Hill Group
Presumably much of this support came from a May 2005 Oda fundraiser when corporate donations were lawful and Oda was the Heritage critic rather than the Heritage Minister.
Even so, the significant financial support does little to instill confidence in the fairness of the copyright reform process.
Given that many of the donors did not provide financial support to any other riding association in Canada (with the possible exception of Sam Bulte, whose riding association has yet to file its report), there is little doubt about the motivations behind the decision to back Bev at a time when it looked like the Liberals’ fall was imminent.
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 www.michaelgeist.ca.]
See:
Oda accepted contributions – Bev Oda: shades of Sam Bulte, June 9, 2006
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June 30th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Funny how that works…Record/Movie/Software industry buys off politicians, politicians change the laws in favor of record industry, then the record industry points at the people who the law was aimed at and says “You’re stealing our music/movies/software so now we’re coming to sue you. We have full faith that the law will be upheld”. My question to the pigopolists is,”How is paying people off to change the rules in your favor considered fair law?” Of course, at least in the US, you don’t hear about this crap going on. All the little dirty deals under the table. Unfortunately this corruption runs through both houses. On the Democrats side we have Barbera Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Hillary Clinton on the Republicans side we have Orin Hatch. Looks like the politicians found a good bottle to suck on and they all come a runnin’ like good little piglets to the mother sow which is the RIAA/MPAA/BSA. I’m getting sick and tired of these blatent “sell-outs” running our country. Copyright is changing into something completely different than it’s original attention. When the RIAA/MPAA/BSA found that they couldn’t use a pair of scissors to chop down the forrest, rather than accept the fact. They went back, fashioned a saw strung together with duct tape and begand to whittle away at a single tree. These guys are the greediest bafoons I have ever seen. Hopefully anonymous P2P will come soon and put to rest the crap these idiots are pusing on us like a drug dealer.
July 1st, 2006 at 12:22 am
Funny how that works…Record/Movie/Software industry buys off politicians, politicians change the laws in favor of record industry, then the record industry points at the people who the law was aimed at and says “You’re stealing our music/movies/software so now we’re coming to sue you. We have full faith that the law will be upheld”. My question to the pigopolists is,”How is paying people off to change the rules in your favor considered fair law?” Of course, at least in the US, you don’t hear about this crap going on. All the little dirty deals under the table. Unfortunately this corruption runs through both houses. On the Democrats side we have Barbera Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Hillary Clinton on the Republicans side we have Orin Hatch. Looks like the politicians found a good bottle to suck on and they all come a runnin’ like good little piglets to the mother sow which is the RIAA/MPAA/BSA. I’m getting sick and tired of these blatent “sell-outs” running our country. Copyright is changing into something completely different than it’s original attention. When the RIAA/MPAA/BSA found that they couldn’t use a pair of scissors to chop down the forrest, rather than accept the fact. They went back, fashioned a saw strung together with duct tape and begand to whittle away at a single tree. These guys are the greediest bafoons I have ever seen. Hopefully anonymous P2P will come soon and put to rest the crap these idiots are pusing on us like a drug dealer.
July 12th, 2006 at 5:42 am
I noticed that a number of articles seem to put a negative spin on the profession of government relations and lobbying. I have read a balanced view on best practices for government relations at:
http://www.leonarddomino.com/strategy/2005-12-8-lessons.html
July 12th, 2006 at 5:43 am
I noticed that a number of articles seem to put a negative spin on the profession of government relations and lobbying. I have read a balanced view on best practices for government relations at:
http://www.leonarddomino.com/strategy/2005-12-8-lessons.html