28
Apr
2010
(Hill)arious 28.04.10
Yesterday in Parliament, the claws came out. I’m not referring to Guergis/Jaffer snorting blow or Harper trying to flush Afghan detainee papers down the toilet. No my friends, things got heated over the Heritage Committee’s favourite topic du jour: The World Wide Web.
The guest speakers were two university professors working with new media, two reps from Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), and the founder of openmedia.ca, a website dedicated to online innovation. He basically just looked pissed and hung-over the whole time.
The university professors pled for government funded digital literacy programs, ACTRA reps said the Gov can’t allow Canadians to sell our communications companies to US big wigs and argued for an extended collective license agreement so creators are better compensated (opposite of expanding fair dealing so that more copyright material is available for free). Openmedia.ca said the Gov needs to fund high-risk innovative companies and the bit torrent must live on!
Nothing revolutionary was said, but there was a committee meeting first (for me, anyway), where a history professor from Brock University used powerpoint to show a 3-D program he invented to re-create historical buildings. He showed the committee Ottawa’s Sparks Street in 1878, but not before he was given grief by a Bloc Quebecois MP because the powerpoint slides weren’t in French (even though hard copy versions of the slides had been provided in both official languages).
I spoke with the professor before the meeting got under way, and he told me it was a challenge getting the committee, that remember, is developing their digital media strategy, to accept a powerpoint presentation. Was Bloc Quebecois really mad about the language, or is this some Parliament ploy to make sure nobody becomes too technologically advanced before they put out the strategy? Michael Moore? Do you smell a documentary?
Now for the juicy part: all hell broke loose when NDP member Charles Angus (who apparently is a two-time Juno nominee and been a member of the bands L’Etranger and Grievous Angel) asked the ACTRA rep if he thought it was logical the Heritage Minister, James Moore, did not support artist levies, whereby musicians receive money every time their music is copied (i.e. those blank CDs you buy (well, used to buy) include a tax that goes to the artist).
Angus has proposed bill C-499 that would extend the levy beyond blank CDs to digital audio devices such as ipods and MP3′s. The proposed tax has become affectionately known as the “itax.” The issue has been chewed over in the media, and Angus even used his appearance at last week’s Juno awards as a platform to talk about the bill. Apparently last month Minister Moore “tweeted” he did not support this amendment (oh, look at me! Government speak!) but on the bright side, showed he was capable of using new media.
ACTRA-man, a good-humoured silver fox answered “no”, he didn’t see any logic in the Minister’s thinking to not support the levy and gave Angus a knowing smile.
“I totally reject the statement that the Minister of Heritage is attacking artists,” said our Conservative Trekkie (hill)arious winner from last meeting when given the next turn to speak. “The Minister of Canadian Heritage has fought for the most significant budgets of any Federal Government for all forms of arts in the country in this nation’s history.”
He went on to explain the reason the Minister opposes extending the levy is not because he doesn’t support artists, but because digital audio devices are more complex than blank CDs. Since something like an ipod doesn’t just play music, creating an additional tax means artists could be compensated for someone uploading photos or using a calendar.
“What do you use your Ipod for Deaner?” taunted Angus to the Trekkie MP, whose actual name is Dean Del Mastro.
“We’re not proposing a levy on your Calendar,” said ACTRA-man, dryly. “The primary use of these devices is for music.”
“Deaner” ranted about how the levy is becoming murkier as technology advances and that the consumer is bearing the brunt of this until he was red in the face.
When it was ACTRA’s turn to respond, he said, cooly: “I’m just checking to make sure the sky wasn’t falling.”
This comment was not appreciated by one of the older Conservative MP’s who locked eyes on ACTRA and said evenly: “Cheaps shots will get you a
The award
lot of friends.”
This is the moment where everyone stands up and yells, FIGHT!!!!!!
A Liberal MP metaphorically shoved his way through the onlookers to break up the punches. He reminded everyone around the table to berespectful and sent the boys to their respective corners for a time-out.
The (Hill)arious award goes to silver-fox ACTRA man with the sharp-tongue. Trekkie may have you beat on size, but on the Parliament playground it’s all about launching verbal grenades.