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Sam Bulte and the Copyright Pledge

Courtesy of Michael “The Darker Side to Rants” Kalus, here’s Sam Bulte’s response to being asked to take Michael Geist’s Copyright Pledge. The answer is “no”, but wow, is it an emphatic one!

“Pro-user zealots?” That would make her “anti-user”, then.

13 replies on “Sam Bulte and the Copyright Pledge”

Can someone type up the words spoken in this video?

I’m unable to play the video (no speakers) and I guess

that if what she says is really that outragious, having it

in writing can only help…

The post on Boing Boing about all this is pretty good. The relevant comments that she makes are as follows:

“I will not allow Michael Geist and his pro-user zealots, and Electronic Frontier Foundation members to intimidate me into silencing my voice.”

I’ve put together a rough transcript. NB it is VERY rough, the audio wasn’t great so there are some holes, guesswork and question marks. You should really watch the video yourself if you can.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: and the pledge is as follows. No member of parliament who has accepted financial contributions or other benefits from a copyright group, lobby group its corporate members or senior executives as well as the copyright collective shall serve as minister of Canadian heritage or as parliamentary secretary to the minister of Canadian heritage nor sit on any legislative committee conducting hearings or deliberations on copyright matters. [applause]

[CHAIR?]: [inaudible]

SAM BULTE: I am proud of my support of creators in terms of copyright. I am an advocate for the creative process for people like Victor Coleman, [names inaudible] for all the people who live in this riding my donations are absolutely transparent. In 2004 10% of all my donations came from so called cultural industries such as [???] I mean 9% of my donations came from individuals.

People support me because they support my voice for the artist and I will not allow Michael Geist and his pro-user zealot Electronic Frontier Foundation members to intimidate me into silence my voice. I am proud of my support of the artists, I will continue to be that voice. I have been that voice in 1997 and I will ensure that the voice of creators is heard in the Industry Canada when we negotiate [that proper balance in copyright?]

thanks for posting this jose! I’ve heard Sam speak at the UofT conference on copyright. she was a terrible terrible speaker and to make matter worse she was trying to defend her heritage committee report which already been brutally deconstructed by Geist earlier in the day later by William Fisher from Harvard. even the canadian recording industry speakers were more sympathetic speakers that dear old Sam… thank god her comittees’ recos were all rejected by the whoever drafter the current liberal copyright ammendments (a bill which died on the floor prior to the ellection)

Great job!

Thanks for this coverage and your detailed report, Joey. It was rousing meeting to be sure. And in the words of the great Stephen Colbert: Sam Bulte, YOU GOT NAILED! What a rush.

I was really impressed with Peggy (as always) and Rob Rishchynski. The Marxist guy made some valid arguments but might have expressed them more quickly. The pot party guy was, well, he tried … I had gotten the chance to ask my question (after standing in line for so long). Either way, I’m glad you were there to be a citizen journalist and get this great scoop.

– Melanie McBride (AKA chandrasutra)

Correction. She said that 90% of her contributions came from individuals, not 9% as posted in the “Rough Transcript” comment.

I want to make a correction to the rough transcript I posted in a comment yesterday.

As Anonymous pointed out it does in fact sound, on further listening, like the final sentence of Sam’s 1st paragraph should read ‘I mean 90% of my donations came from individuals. ‘ NOT 9% as I initially wrote.

Thanks for posting the video of my question. I’ve made a post about the experience here. I never did figure out how to do trackbacks 😉

This is great, but should we be looking over our shoulder for a hedge bet? I’d hate to get blindsided by Hollywod by not looking for a similar sell-out in the Conservative camp.

Good point on the strong copyright lobby making a hedge bet, they’ve done just that. Michael Geist talks about it here.

The Oda funding is noteworthy because it suggests that the leading candidates for the Minister of Canadian Heritage position from both the Liberals and Conservatives have accepted copyright lobby campaign contributions.

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