Jim Prentice: Selling Canada by the Pound

Somewhere there's a bright, broad band of yellow and it runs from south to north. It isn't the snow stained evidence of a leaking dog. It is the shameful mark worn by of a Minister of the Crown. From where the shirt tails tuck and cower to the pointed nub that perches, quivering atop the tremulous spine, that streak of coward's colour says it's Jim Prentice you're behind. Our Minister of Industry has mistaken his employers, believing that it is not we, the voting public, to whom he must answer. Rather, he seems to have concluded that Minister of Industry means that he answers to industry, with legislation by industry and for industry.

Poor Minister Prentice is hiding from you, my fellow Canadians. He is hidden away wiping the chemically enhanced juice from his chin, the corporate teat still red from his eager suckling. For this pink little man has a secret and you are going to get to pay for it. He is preparing to launch a new copyright regime that will cripple your machines and criminalize your children. His new laws will strip you of freedom to use, move or alter entertainment and digital files and devices that you own and purchase.

The copyright legislation that hangs like a Damoclean sword over our heads will serve only the interests of Sony/BMG, Universal Music Group, EMI and a handful of other abusive corporate behemoths. You currently pay a hidden levy for the right to make copies of media. Millions of dollars have come out of our pockets to repay these rapacious thugs for their cries of piracy. Yet even the government's own studies indicate that copying and sharing doesn't hurt, in fact helps, the entertainment industry. For all of their whining about the billions lost, their dishonest studies can't hide that they still reap huge profits despite their unwillingness to adapt.

CBC radio's Search Engine made an honest effort to engage the shifty minister in dialogue. They gathered the thoughts, questions and concerns of hundreds of Canadians including artists and stake holders. But the minister will not appear on the program. He will not answer the concerns of Canadians. His office claims it will release a statement explaining the minister's cowardly refusal to address the legitimate concerns of the public on the national airwaves.

Jim Prentice has a secret that he is going to protect, even if it means exposing himself as a cowardly bought man. Too bad. So here is another example of the Conservative government's transparency and accountability in action. Here are a few things to look at when you consider whether it is worth your while to act:

Prentice's chickenshit refusal to address concerns.

How to fight the evil.

Some questions from an expert that Prentice can run away from.

Canadian songwriters, another group the minister is hiding from.

Michael Geist offers some advice.

Micheal Geist's front page, go and read. This is important. I ain't kidding here.

And in the interest of disclosure, I am a stake holder and work with and for stake holders (some of whom do not share my views, those would be the giant frickin' corporations and associations). I am a member of SOCAN, ACTRA and the SAC. As a singer/songwriter and actor, the idea of locking down technology and limiting the means of distribution is counter productive to the ongoing development of our arts, culture and heritage. This legislation threatens to place impediments and obstacles in the path of our development as a people. We are placing the future of our education, innovation and social identity at risk to placate a few corporate entities that have failed utterly to appreciate the vast potential of an open future.

No good can come of mimicking the failed and foolish policies of the DMCA. Propping up cartels at the expense of the public and the consumer is a disaster waiting to happen. The sheer presumptuous stupidity of making an enemy of the consumer defies all sense. It serves neither the art, the artist nor the lovers of art and culture. It threatens the persistence of culture and that my friends is stupidity on a criminal scale. Jim Prentice had best take note that his name will be forever attached to this next step. If he willingly plunges us into the chasm of litigious ignorance that threatens, then his name will be mud and his legacy won't be worth wiping with.

Write your MP, write to the minister, write to Harper himself and write to your local papers, tv stations and radio. Read the links, see where we are headed and take action or we will all lose. We will lose the right to make fair use of copyright material for education, personal copying, parody and innovation. We will shackle ourselves to a set of intellectual limitations that will prevent our economy from moving into an information and technology based future. Perhaps Jim Prentice is comfortable with those shackles, you should not be.