Why Is The Canadian Government Paying The Copyright Lobby?

from the seems-like-a-decent-question dept

Michael Geist's latest column questions why the Canadian government is paying the Creators' Rights Alliance -- an organization that, among other things, lobbies the government on policy issues involving copyright. If it were somehow a small organization whose voice wasn't getting heard, some might defend it as helping those who don't have an effective lobbying voice. However, this isn't a small, struggling organization. It's especially worrying since we've seen repeatedly that lobbying organizations focused on copyrights often don't actually represent the views of the content creators they claim to represent.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Lucas, 26 Jun 2006 @ 12:42pm

    Governments paying lobbyists?

    Does this not seem like a fundamentally wrong way for a government to act -- to be paying a lobbying group? If we remove the issue, why not pay any other type of lobbyists? Tobacco, abortion, anything could be plugged in here?

    And why, as a Canadian citizen, am I still paying a levy on my blank media (while a little out of date, this answers some questions on this: http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml)? Makes me so mad... I want to... go... illegally copy some music.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Rikko, 26 Jun 2006 @ 2:28pm

    It's the Canadian government.. They'll pay for anything.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    |333173|3|_||3, 26 Jun 2006 @ 9:36pm

    And the US?

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.