Canada’s Government has “declared war on the music business”, according to the largest independnet music publisher in the territory.
The president of ole, Michael McCarty, said today that the Harper Government is deploying tactics such as job-killing copyright legislation, publicity stunts, and pre-empting an independent judicial process currently before the Copyright Board of Canada.
The country’s Industry Minister Christian Paradis’ recently announced that he intends to prevent songwriters and recording artists from receiving royalties from memory chips used to store music in smart phones.
ole today called that “a signal that the Harper Government’s attack on music copyright didn’t end with the recent passing of the controversial copyright bill C-11”
During a publicity stunt staged at a Future Shop store in Ottawa, Paradis declared, “Our government cannot allow a fee to be imposed on microSD memory cards.”
The related news release stated the Minister will request that the Governor-in-Council introduce regulations in the fall to achieve his goal.
ole’s President Michael McCarty said: “This whole bizarre incident is further evidence that the Harper Government has declared war on the music industry and will go to extraordinary lengths to, once again, ensure that Canadian artists are not paid for their work.
“First, they drop the Bill C-11 bomb, which will likely wipe out $30 Million a year in digital music royalties, and now they are destroying markets and interfering with the autonomy of the Copyright Board.”
“There is also a clear pattern that shows just how far Stephen Harper’s Government is prepared to go to support the large tech corporations that make billions of dollars from the piracy of music. They are killing jobs, investment, and the ability of artists to make a living.”
“This Government does not seem to understand that in the digital age, “content is king”, and ideas are more valuable than tangible goods. The copyright industries contribute more to annual GDP than agriculture or mining.”
In conclusion, McCarty stated: “A country that fails to protect intellectual property fails to protect its economic future. We are at a crucial fork in the road, and are being led down the wrong path.
“Canadians need to stand up and insist that our government acts to secure our future in the information age, or we will be left in the digital dust.”
ole has raised and spent $115 million dollars on music copyrights since launching in 2004. Based in Toronto, with additional offices in Nashville and Los Angeles, the company has been named Canadian Country Music Association’s Music Publishing Company of the Year for the past five years.
The ole catalog includes over 45,000 songs and 40,000 hours of TV music across all genres. Its acquisitions so far include purchases of music catalogs from artists and writers such as Blacktop, Jody Williams Music, Rami Yacoub, Chris Wallin, Rick Giles, Balmur, Keith Follese, Lighthouse, Frank Myers, Dream Warriors, Encore, David Tyson, and Marsfilm Music. ole has also purchased the worldwide music rights for TV catalogs such as WGBH, Cookie Jar, Cineflix, CCI and recently, “The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About That.”Music Business Worldwide
