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Canadian election halts copyright reform
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 29 March 2011
Efforts by the Canadian music industry to have copyright laws reformed have come to a halt after the government there lost a confidence vote last week resulting in a General Election. The result is that all legislation still working its way through the Canadian parliament, including the copyright law reforming Bill C-32, is dropped.
As previously reported, Canadian record companies have been lobbying for a reform of copyright laws there for years. The pre-internet copyright system in Canada has not proven particularly helpful to those labels trying to target file-sharers through the courts, and labels were hoping to get new laws to help tackle online piracy.
Although Bill C-32 was not without its critics, it passed on second hearing in Canada’s parliament last November, and seemed to have a lot more momentum than past efforts to reform copyright in the country. But now, according to Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, the Bill is “in the words of Monty Python, a dead parrot”.
As for whether copyright reform will remain on the agenda after May’s General Election, Henderson told Billboard: “It’s up to the next government to make that call. If we get a Conservative government again, whether a minority or majority, it will remain a priority. It was a priority. So the hope would be that it would be reintroduced at some point after the recall of parliament”
