Canadian music entrepreneur to Hollywood’s MP: get bent!
Not all musicians and labels want multinational corporations to buy
overbroad copyright laws in Canada. Neil Leyton, owner of the Canadian
Creative Commons music-label Fading Ways, has issued a press-release
decrying the entertainment cartel’s funding of Sam Bulte’s electroal
campaign.
Bulte is the Liberal MP who is campaigning for her third seat in
Parliament after receiving unprecedented campaign donations from
entertainment and pharmaceutical companies in her previous campaigns.
After receiving these large sums, Bulte authored reports and
legislation for new draconian copyright laws that mirror the failed
American system that has turned 70,000,000 American file-sharers into
criminals.
Leyton, a Toronto musician and owner of the innovative, Internet-based
label Fading Ways, knows what this is all about: it’s a bid to keep
entrepreneurial competitors out of the market, protecting the cushy
businesses of the multinational corporations that dominate Canadian
culture.
CRIA and the majors have launched a massive PR assault
to convince the Canadian public that downloading and file-sharing hurts
record sales – again, in the independent sector, nothing could be
further from the truth. The internet helps new fans discover new
artists, and "piracy" is nothing but a scapegoat for the major label’s
failing business models that date back to the booming 80s. Indie CD
sales are up, while major labels’ sales are down due to the rise in the
DVD market, and the high-price of sub-quality releases they peddle to
the masses via huge marketing budgets.Lastly, CRIA’s press release this past week dared to accuse the NDP
of "abandoning their traditional support for artists" in order to
attack the NDP Parkdale candidate, Peggy Nash. (CRIA candidate Sam
Bulte’s opponent). Not true – the NDP is the only party that is aware
of CRIA’s corporate attempt to hijack Canadian copyright legislation,
which at this point remains the most balanced and fair copyright act
when compared to the USA’s DMCA and the EU’s IP Enforcement Directive.
One particular NDP candidate, Charlie Angus, is an independent
musician, author and broadcaster himself.
