Let’s all wear funny hats and celebrate - the world is going Copyright Crazy!

First off the mark is Cory Doctorow and his post over on BoingBoing on how the U.S. driven copyright lobby in Canada is now charging around the public square like a frothing rabid dog:

The lobby for US-style copyrights in Canada has gone into overdrive, recruiting a powerful Member of Parliament and turning public forums on copyright into one-sided love-fests for restrictive copyright regimes that criminalize everyday Canadians.

Dan McTeague is the Liberal MP from Pickering-Scarborough East, and he’s set to become the successor to Sam Bulte, the MP who lost her job for funding her campaign to get elected and appointed Heritage Minister by lining her pockets with massive donations from the very industries she would have ended up regulating. Reliable sources tell me that he’s the guy who pushed for Canada signing onto the WIPO copyright treaty in its anti-counterfeiting report last year, and that any time anyone in committee mentions fair dealing and user rights, he has a complete melt-down and shouts them down.

Doctorow went on to say:

The supposedly non-partisan Public Policy Forum is holding a major, one-sided IP symposium on Monday. Invited are the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, former head of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry Association, and other big-stick-swingers for American-style copyright disasters. But when copyright lobbyists discovered that noted copyright scholar Howard Knopf would appear on just one of the panels, they went berserk and pushed successfully to have Knopf removed, ensuring that dissenting voices would be minimized on the day.

Seems like we must all be striking a nerve if these assholes are flailing about in such an overly aggressive and demented manner. If we can keep up - or ramp up - the pressure on the politicians and the awareness of the public, we might just be able to tip them completely over the edge — and that’s when we get to watch their heads explode!

Wheeee!

Meanwhile, Business Week posted a lengthy article on Tanya Andersen’s legal fight with the RIAA. Ms. Andersen was successful in getting the RIAA suit aginst her, charging her with copyright theft, thrown out of court - but she’s gone further than most of the other victims of the RIAA goon tactics: she’s taking them to court under the Racketeering and Conspiracy laws.

After being sued by the music industry for stealing songs and winning the case’s dismissal, Andersen is now taking the record industry to court. Her case is aimed at exposing investigative practices that are controversial and may be illegal, according to the lawsuit. One company hired by the record industry, she claims, snoops through people’s computers, uncovering private files and photos, even though it has no legal right to do so. A different industry-backed company uses tactics similar to those of debt collectors, pressuring people to pay thousands of dollars in settlements even before any wrongdoing is proven. In Andersen’s case, the industry’s Settlement Support Center said that unless she paid $4,000 to $5,000 immediately, it would “ruin her financially,” the suit alleges.

Andersen is going after the recording industry under conspiracy laws. She argues the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry’s trade group, and its affiliates worked together on a broad campaign to intimidate people into making financial payoffs. The defendants “secretly met and conspired” to develop a “litigation enterprise” with the ultimate goal of preserving the major record companies’ control over the music business. Andersen is requesting class action status for her case, seeking at least $5 million in compensation for the class.

Whether its the industry itself, like EMI losing its marbles - or the representatives of the industry, like the RIAA and Media Sentry acting like gangsters on steroids and the CRIA acting like a pathetic lap dog - or corrupted political figures like Bulte, McTeague and a chorus of others here in Canada, sucking up to power brokers from the U.S. media lobby regardless of the destructive influence their actions have over the lives and businesses of Canadian citziens — it’s all just such a load of crazy assholery that it leaves my head spinning like a frog in a blender.

We’ve seen some very good action come from the likes of Michael Geist keeping people aware of the reality of Canada’s copyright laws and helping to organize Facebook groups and other events to build public awareness and response to the chicanery, lies and bullshit of the industry lobby and their kiss ass parliamentary cohorts. Parliamentary critics like Charlie Angus (NDP), interviewed here for P2PNet post, are also doing outstanding work to keep these issues at the forefront in public debate.

I’d like to see some of this shit come down on Dan McTeague now. He was also responsible for going behind the back of his own government and meeting with officials in the U.S. embassy in an effort to subvert the (then Liberal - his own) government from enacting legislation that would have reformed the cannabis laws in this country. Regardless of your stand on the use of cannabis we’re talking about our country, our laws and our political representatives meeting with a foreign power to subvert due parliamentary process. McTeague takes prominent positions publicly to guild his image as a warrior on behalf of the people but the reality behind the scenes is one of constant subversion of the will of the people, self-serving toadying to powerful corporate interests and working to benefit foreign governments to the detriment of our own society. Down right shameful.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - the issues of Copyright and Net Neutrality are Free Speech Issues. Content companies - telcos and cable - corrupt government officials - are fucking with our most basic rights to freedom of speech. They are doing it for greed - greed for money and greed for power. They lie, cheat, steal, intimidate, corrupt, imprison - using the power and resources of our own government institutions against us. They are a bunch of dangerous, short-sighted greedy arse crack-snacking nickel-licking fucking cocktard weasels.

And I’ll be damned if they get to tell me - or any one else - what we can say, when we can say it, who we can say it to and by what means.

That’s what this is all about - and that it it has even managed to get this far down the road to hell is stunning. There is a lot wrong with the world. If we are to have any hope of fixing all that is broken in it, we need the power to talk to each other.

That’s it.

Enjoy your weekend.

On Monday - come out swingin’.

Cheers.