Today’s Sam Bulte news

Over at the CopyrightWatch.ca blog, David Fewer makes note of Sam Bulte’s evolution into a copyright politician (I added some formatting to make it easier to spot the campaign contributors):

Ms. Bulte was first elected in 1997. According to Elections Canada’s candidate contributions and expense reports, her campaign contributions totaled $67,423. Corporate sponsors aplenty, but no big copyright. And, interestingly, I cannot find reference to Ms. Bulte even uttering the word “copyright” until the dying months of that Parliament, when, as a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, she asked a few questions in a working sessions on a study of the Canadian book industry. She’d have to have slept pretty hard to avoid talking copyright there.

In the November, 2000, election, Ms. Bulte had managed to scoop up over $81,000 in campaign financing. And now some of the big copyright names are there:

• SOCAN
• The Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association
• Alliance Communications Corporation
• Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc.
• Epitome Pictures
• Chapters
• CanWest Global
• CTV
• Rogers Communications
• Baton Broadcasting
• Good Earth Ventures
• Astral Television Network

Interestingly, there are a number of other IP intensive industries represented:

• beer (Molsons)
• wine (Pilliteri Estates Winery)
• pharmaceuticals (Pfizer and Apotex – makes you wonder what she said to these two!)

[If you’re from Canada and especially Toronto, the name “Apotex” should ring a bell — they’re the drug company that sponsored Dr. Nancy Olivieri’s clinical drug trials and tried to suppress her findings of unexpected risks. — Joey]

And when the 37th Parliament began on January 29, 2001, voila, Ms. Bulte began publicly uttering pro-copyright platitudes. By April 2, 2001, Ms. Bulte stood in the House to “applaud” the initiatives of “the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and its partners, the Canadian Independent Record Production Association and the Canadian Recording Industry Association”. By December 6, 2001, Ms. Bulte was announcing to the House the imminent tabling of a copyright bill. And, on June 18, 2002, Ms. Bulte spoke on third reading of Bill C-48, the Internet retransmission exemption won by broadcasters. A Canadian copyright politician is born.

Her interest in copyright — or more accurately, the misapplication of copyright by corporations — is merely a byproduct of the crowd she’s running with. This is like the kid in high school who went to the UK for three weeks during summer vacation and came back with an accent and calling trucks “lorries”, but with far bigger implications.

For the greater good (and for your enjoyment as well), I’ve bookended this blog entry with a couple of modified Sam Bulte graphics that you can freely post on your websites, blogs or print out and turn into signs or stickers. Enjoy!