Earlier this week, the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) called for Stéphane Dion and the opposition Liberals to join them in their campaign to support net neutrality legislation which will protect the privacy and rights of all Canadians using the Internet. No word about their participation yet.

In fact, no word on where they stand, period. It turns out the Liberals are just as nebulous as the Conservative government is on the issue. A quick search on the party’s official website turns up zero results for “net neutrality.”

Along the same lines, a search for “copyright” on liberal.ca produces a 2007 press release about the government’s under-funding of museums, without ever really talking about how projected copyright reform could seriously harm such institutions.

Then again, the Liberal position on copyright reform is becoming distressingly clearer if one takes Liberal Party’s Consumer Affairs critic Dan McTeague’s recent behaviour as a barometer. McTeague, who has a reputation for championing consumer-related causes, has been hobnobbing with DMCA-style legislation advocates, like CRIA and ACTRA, and pushing for tougher copyright legislation.

Moreover, McTeague’s apparently been swimming in their Kool-Aid, as he’s started adopting their skewed rhetoric, demanding that WIPO treaties be ratified, demonstration support for property rights of IP holders with claims of theft being theft, and promoting the risible assumption that Canada’s international reputation has been tarnished due to inappropriate legislation.

The NDP has spoken out clearly on both these issues, calling out Industry Minister Jim Prentice on different occasions to clarify the government’s intentions and how it would affect Canadians. The Greens are in there too. Where are the Liberals? Why haven’t they challenged the Conservatives on this issue? With a majority of Canadians clearly supportive of fair copyright legislation and net neutrality advocacy, their restraint is truly puzzling, although the most cynical of us will state that big business has the ear of the Liberals on this one as well; their silence telling of the unpopular position they are about to prop themselves onto.

Can the Liberals be trusted to do the right thing? Within the next six weeks, the Conservatives plan on dropping a new copyright bill. While it’s too early to know what the bill’s provisions are, the Liberals will be soon forced to position themselves. We’ll then see who’s looking out for who.

On the heels of the recent discovery that Bell Canada has been throttling their wholesale ASDL connections, the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) has issued a cease and desist motion demanding that the telecom stop imparing “speed and performance of the wholesale ADSL access services that it provides to independent ISPs and other competitors.”

In the application filed late yesterday, CAIP has claimed that Bell’s actions have impacted performance “to the point where the quality of the service has been degraded beyond recognition.” It therefore seeks to curb Bell’s anti-competitive ways, but it also wants to “ensure the technological and competitive neutrality.”

Yes, they used the word “neutrality.” A word both the CRTC and the Conservative government would much prefer to do without.

The CRTC has long avoided getting involved in a true debate on the issue, but with the CAIP demanding their involvement they will have to set a precedent, in one form or the other.

As for the government’s stance, Industry Minister Jim Prentice refused to give a straightforward answer when the issue came up in question period on Wednesday, courtesy of NDP MP Charlie Angus. Angus asked:

“What steps will the Minister of Industry take to ensure that consumers who paid for access are not going to be ripped, that badly needed competition will not be squeezed off, and send a message to the telecom giants that they have no business monkey wrenching with the free flow of information?”

To which Prentice gave a brief and dismissive politispeak answer stating “[a]t this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other.” The simple fact that he did not outright condemn this action or, at the very least, express concern about it, is deplorably revealing of the Conservative’s position: being comfortable with the idea of letting telecoms manipulate Internet traffic as they see fit instead of looking out for the free flow of information.

The whole (albeit short) exchange can be seen on YouTube.

It’s equally deplorable to hear Prentice use the lack of Internet regulation in Canada as an excuse. After all, regulation in this matter falls under his jurisdiction, and he’s been rather chilly at the prospect of tabling any kind of legislation or spearheading a proposal. The government knows that Canadian public opinion is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the telecoms. And since lack of regulation allows the telecoms to have free reign over their networks, it’s sadly apparent that Jim Prentice and the Conservative government are more interested in protecting private interests than those of their citizens.

But as one of Canada’s largest telecommunications companies falls under attack by Canada’s largest ISP association, it will be very difficult from this point on for the government to not get involved. They will, sooner than later, be called to position themselves clearly in this particular issue, which will be quite telling of what the Conservatives have in store for net neutrality in the future.

Michael Geist: CRTC To Face Net Neutrality Issue as CAIP Demands Bell Cease and Desist Its Throttling Practices
Globe and Mail: Prentice mum on ISP throttling debate
NDP: Internet "throttling" a consumer rip-off
Broadband Reports: Bell Canada Redefines 'Satisfaction' and 'Fairness'
YouTube: NDP MP Charlie Angus on Net Neutrality

Remember last week when I posted a little article about the Conservative government blissfully cracking eggs all over its face after being on the receiving end of a copyright violation? Apparently the whole thing has been cleared up, as the Tories and Warner/Chappell Canada have come to a settlement about the government’s public use of the song For The Love Of Money by the O’Jays without having secured the rights beforehand.

And what are the terms of the settlement? Oh, those are secret. Super hush-hush. It’s an “internal party matter” says a Tory spokesperson. You understand.

So on top of this embarrassing screw up by Jim Prentice’s crew, the man who is overseeing copyright reform in Canada, the party which promised more transparency than previous administrations won’t go full disclosure on the situation. Way to go, folks: not only do I hope no public funds are going to pay for this “internal party matter,” but I really doubt the Industry minister and his minions have any idea how copyright works, seeing they can’t manage it in the field themselves.

Ottawa Citizen: Tories settle copyright dispute with music publisher

Irony, or irony: (1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2): an event or result marked by such incongruity.

But honestly, seriously: a press conference led by Jim Prentice himself used For The Love Of Money by the O’Jays in a video presentation, and nobody in the party thought about securing the rights. Thusly, Warner/Chappell Music Canada Ltd. slapped the Tories with a copyright violation notice.

Right now, the Conservatives believe that the problem lies with the fact that it was broadcast on television, and since it was the news outlets covering the event who put the song on the air, it’s not their fault.

Conservative party spokes-man Ryan Sparrow declined to discuss the possibility the video violated Warner’s intellectual property rights.

“I’ve checked with our lawyers and our position is that we don’t comment on rumours of possible claims against the party.”

He said the video produced by the party was not an advertisement.

“The Conservative party has not released any ads containing the music in question,” he said.

However, anyone who has ever picked up a CD has seen the “unauthorized copying, public performance, broadcasting, hiring or rental is prohibited” warnings printed on the jacket in tiny letters. And those words mean that you can’t use a song during a public event without permission, regardless of whether you’re broadcasting it or not. It’s exactly the same situation which happened to Mike Huckabee when he was asked by Boston to stop using More Than Feeling at his campaign events. Huckabee wasn’t using it in commercials, but he was using it in public events without the band’s permission.

Oh, how I’d love to hear the Tories utter the words “fair dealing” in this case…

Via Michael Geist

Michael Geist has sources; his sources are telling him that a potent group of business associations and individual companies are banding together to oppose Jim Prentice’s DMCA legislation, and major players like Google and Yahoo! are adding their logos to the banner. The Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright will stand for, among other things, expanding Canada’s fair dealing (i.e. fair use) rights and rational enforcement of copyright penalties.

Alongside the two search giants is an impressive collection of media and telecommunications players who are not going to sit by and let the music lobby get its way.

They include:

• Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB)
• Canadian Association of Internet Providers, a division of CATAlliance (CAIP)
• Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA)
• Canadian Wireless and Telecommunications Association (CWTA)
• Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA)
• Retail Council of Canada (RCC)
• Google
• Third Brigade
• Tucows
• Yahoo! Canada
• Cogeco Cable
• EastLink
• MTS Allstream
• Rogers Communications Inc.
• SaskTel
• Telus

The International Intellectual Property Alliance, mouthpiece of over 1,300 American media companies (including RIAA and MPAA members), can continue to pressure Canada into complying, but it’s obvious that our homebased interests will have nothing to do with DMCA-style legislation. So, moreso than ever, the Conservative copyright reform will have to prove if it’s out to protect the interests of Canadian companies, or those from abroad.

Michael Geist: Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright Speaks Out Against Canadian DMCA
Canada a top copyright violator, U.S. group says

Following-up on something I mentioned last week, the Conservative government, who pledged for more transparency and accountability in government, has solidly messed up on their campaign promise to bring treaties to the House of Commons for debate before ratification.

Industry Minister Jim Prentice wants to get the Canadian version of the DMCA in so bad, that he refuses to place the WIPO treaty up for debate and will ratify it without any open discussion in the House.

From the article at The Hill Times:

According to the policy, this would mean that before the government introduces copyright legislation to implement two treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization, it is required to table the treaties in the House for debate and votes and hold a 21-day waiting period before introducing the copyright legislation.

However, the Conservative government´s copyright bill to implement the treaties has been sitting on the Order Paper and is expected to be introduced this week.

Moreover, Industry Minister Jim Prentice´s (Calgary Centre-North, Alta.) office confirmed last week that it intends to move ahead with the copyright legislation without first debating the treaties in the House.

Aside from the layers of hypocrisy this whole story unfurls, it’s obvious that Prentice doesn’t have the backbone to do it the right (ie: democratic) way: stand up to music and movie lobbyists from our country and the US to allow any level of copyright reform to be properly debated in Parliament. All this situation serves to prove is that Jim Prentice is the biggest tool of the entertainment industry in Canada today.

Prentice backtracks on treaty policy, copyright to be exempted
Prentice Backtracks On Treaty Policy