Bono goes to Canada

Bono has taken time off from 'rationalising' his tax affairs to go and tell Canada how to spend their taxes.

But let's not focus too much on Bono's tax affairs, and wonder instead about his politics.

While in Canada, Bono praised how great the current government's commitment to overseas development is:

Bono remained above the fray, striking an upbeat note as he arrived on Parliament Hill repeating his mantra of "the world needs more Canada."

"Development assistance, or foreign aid as you call it here, is a really good way of showing who you are to the rest of the world," Bono said, surrounded by fans and well-wishers.

Stephen Harper's government is currently providing just 0.24% of GDP to its aid budget. This gets a visit from Bono and a lot of warm words in the press.

Oddly, though, when Paul Martin's aid budget was at 3% in 2005, Bono issued angry statements and called him out from the stage at a U2 gig.

That's strange, isn't it?

Canadian copyright cops apparently less bothered about other people's copyright

Canipre, the dreadfully-named, self-appointed copyright industry authority in Canada, appears to be lifting content for its website without attribution, observes Michael Geist:

Yet what Canipre does not say is that a blog associated with the company may have been engaged in copyright infringement for many months. The blog – copyrightenforcement.ca – is run by Barry Logan, the company’s Managing Director, Operations (I received an email from Mr. Logan last year that listed the site as his blog address). In addition to posting releases from Canipre and information about the TekSavvy case, the site has posted dozens of full-text articles from media organizations around the world.

For example, last week it posted the full text of a 1200 word article on TV piracy from the Wire Report, an Ottawa-based telecom publication. The article resides behind a paywall limited to subscribers and is listed as “exclusive content.” In fact, reposting full-text articles from other sources is a regular occurrence on the site. Posts in December feature articles from the Huffington Post Canada, Business Insider, and CNET. Earlier posts include full-text articles from the Hollywood Reporter, StreamDaily, Reuters, the Canadian Press, Global News, Vancouver Sun, and the National Post. Some of the posts include articles that strip out reference to the author (Chronicle Herald, CBC) and others include no attribution whatsoever. The site also uses photos from the articles, often without attribution.

Of course, it might be that copyrightenforcement.ca have got all their paperwork in place and just don't bother to mention it on their website. It's possible. But Canipre do have form for taking material and reusing it without permission. When caught using material without the proper licence last time, Logan suggested it was a good thing because it showed, somehow, that the "system worked". Perhaps he's just trying to prove that again?

Dire Straits: Canada okay with faggots after all

If you were planning to move to Canada on the basis of the ban on Money For Nothing, bad news. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council have thought again, and will now allow Knopfler's tale of white-good-shifting to pump from the Canadian radio once again:

The new decision was based on what CBSC calls "considerable additional information" – such as learning that alternative versions of "Money For Nothing" have existed since 1985, proving "the band and the composer considered that there was a less offensive way of presenting the song to the public long ago" and the context in which the word is used demonstrates that "the composer's language appears not to have had an iota of malevolent or insulting intention."

Maybe I'm missing something, but if there's a version without faggot in, doesn't that sort-of suggest even Dire Straits feel uncomfortable with a song using the word, rather than making it alright?

Ten Pirates attempting to take seats

Ten candidates representing The Pirate Party of Canada are standing in their nation's general election.

They've got some lovely policies.

Music Week brings news from Canada and Denmark

Music Week reports on a couple of surveys about unlicensed music:

The debate around P2P and its impact on music sales is never short of controversy and now two new studies have been published which reveal the extreme ends of thinking.

Eamonn Forde's piece doesn't quite live up to this eyecatching opening. Not much is "revealed" at all - indeed, one of the surveys is little more than a crunching of other survey findings.

This is done by the Canadian copyright farming industry, which looks at other surveys from between 2005 and 2008, and concludes that people who use peer to peer networks would spend an extra £110 a year on music if p2p didn't exist.

As Forde points out, looking at a survey about the internet in 2008 to draw conclusions about 2011 is flawed from the very start, and even if you can get round that problem, and except their rather elaborate extrapolation, you're still left with the basic problem that this is all "so what?"

If there weren't p2p networks, people would spend £110 more on music. Maybe. If there were no proper shoes, I would wear flipflops. If there wasn't rain, people would spend less on umbrellas. Perhaps the Canadian Intellectual Property Council might like to conduct a survey into what would happen if there were really unicorns?

The second survey is also a bit "so what":

Meanwhile, TorrentFreak is running details of a study into P2P user behaviour and ethical stances by the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit in Denmark. It found that 70% of those polled said that it was “acceptable” to source music illicitly from the web. Three-quarters, however, said they had moral objections to anyone then selling that illegally acquired music for profit.

People who use peer to peer networks don't have a problem using things like peer to peer networks to obtain music without proper licences. Excuse me while I frantically recolour my worldview.

[via @buzzsonic]

Old faggot gets Dire Straits banned

The awkwardness of the word "faggot" turning up in Money For Nothing has taken a good quarter-century to bite Dire Straits on the buttocks. Canada has banished the song from the airwaves:

St. John’s OZ FM aired the song last year, sparking a complaint that has essentially resulted in a ban [from the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council] on the word from radio airplay in any song – a victory, according to a major gay-rights group, against a slur often hurled by violent gay bashers.

What seems to have happened here is that the Straits have been used as a stalking horse to get "faggot" declared off-limits for all broadcasters, so presumably the complainants were aware the f-word was being dropped in character, but knew by kicking up this storm they could block much more unpleasant songs from appearing on the radio.

Mark Knopfler has spoken before about objections to word:

The lyrics portray the character who uses the epithets as ridiculous. But in a 1985 Rolling Stone interview, Mr. Knopfler said complaints made him wonder whether having the word spoken by a fictional character was too subtle for song. “It suggests that maybe you can't let it have so many meanings – you have to be direct,” he said.

When someone is worrying that a Dire Straits song might be "too subtle", you're in strange territory indeed.

Watching out for hatred is fair enough, but this judgement feels a bit out of line. Surely the context is important?

Pizzicato Five Weekend: Medley

Something of a treat, now - Maki Nomiya from just last month, doing a medley of Pizzicato Five songs, live on stage in Ontario:



[Part of Pizzicato Five weekend]

Pixies: I am a banned Andalousian

So, last week, the Pixies decided they'd rather not play that festival in Tel Aviv.

The Israelis were surprisingly upset:

“I am full of both sorrow and pain,” wrote [promoter] Shuki Weiss, “in light in light of the fact that our repeated attempts to present quality acts and festivals in Israel have increasingly been falling victim to what I can only describe as a form of cultural terrorism which is targeting Israel and the arts worldwide.”

You'd think coming from a country which has been the victim all-too-often of actual terrorism, you might think twice before throwing the word round like that. Apart from anything, 'not being able to see Kim Deal on stage' might seem a small thing to put on a par with 'having your face blown off on a subway train'.

Still, Weiss was upset, so perhaps the kindest thing to do is accept that she was caught in the heat of the moment. It'd be unfair to hold her lazy and offensive use of "terrorist" against her.

After all, it's not like anyone is going to be so thick as to actually interpret 'canceling a gig' as if it was an actual terrorist act, right? You'd have to be...

Sorry, what was that you Canadian was saying?

The Canadian government announced that it is putting the alternative rock band The Pixies on its list of “terrorist organizations” after the group cancelled its upcoming trip to Israel in the wake of the Gaza Flotilla affair.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told reporters today, “Terrorism anywhere and in any form, whether it be physical, moral, verbal, mental or cultural is abhorrent to this government.”

To offer a thin piece of hope, I've not been able to find any news agency reporting this move, so let's hope it's all an attempt at wit that has got out of hand.

Another supporter of the move was Peter Kent, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Americas), who said in an interview, “If the Pixies want to boycott Israel, then Canada is at war with the Pixies.”

Asked if he was familiar with the Pixies’ music, Kent replied that this was not germane to his decision. “I’m not familiar with [Hizbollah leader] Nasrallah’s sermons but I know a terrorist when I see one.”

Although, by his own admission, Kent hasn't seen the Pixies.

If Kent does have this amazing ability to tell who is a terrorist just by looking at them, why don't they have him in airports? You could save a fortune in scanners and security.

If this story is true, does Doolittle now constitutes 'terrorist materials' if you go north of the Great Lakes?

UPDATE: Yes, it turns out it was an attempt at wit on the part of Professor Larry Haiven, who wrote the piece. Kieran's Review spoke to him:

It was a joke, but uh, it was close enough to what’s true, that is somewhat believable.

What wasn't funny, though: the Israeli quote isn't fabricated.

Noel Gallagher: Oh, it fair put the wind up me

You'll recall that Noel Gallagher did a flip-flop over whether he wanted to appear in court to provide a witness impact statement about how it felt to be pushed over on stage. In the end, he just sent a letter:

"I would describe the sudden impact and shock as feeling as if I had been hit by a bus," Gallagher said in his statement.

"I ended up in a heap on the floor."

People who have been hit by buses confirm that, indeed, getting smacked by fifteen tons of metal is very similar to being nudged by a drunk bloke.

"The promotional work in connection with the launch of the new album was very important to its success and early sales momentum. This opportunity was lost," Gallagher said as he described the impact of the missed appearances.

"The emotional impact it had on me was essentially coping with the pressure to perform so as not to let the band down."

It's a bit rich to blame the crappy sales of the album on Noel getting pushed over - you can see why he didn't want to come and deliver that line in person. And given this is meant to be an impact statement, "essentially coping with the pressure to perform so as not to let the band down" doesn't seem to be that much of an emotional strain - isn't that the job description?

Gallagher does say he's suffered pain as a result:

The incident, despite months of rehabilitation and doses of pain killers, has left him with ongoing pain that he is forced to "grin and bear," he said.

"From time to time I still feel painful twinges," Gallagher said in a victim impact statement read in court Tuesday.

"I have been told that I will never really recover from the damage to my ribs."

Oddly, he doesn't say by whom. And there are some doctors who say that while ribs can heal, they never heal to be as good as they were before, so Noel may very well have a point.

Outside the courtroom, there were other - equally considered - impact statements:

"I personally think that this incident is responsible for Oasis breaking up because of all the momentum that was lost," said Paul Benoit

You might think this is just ill-informed speculation, but Paul is an insider:

...who was working as a caterer at the festival the night of the attack.

Back in the court, sentencing of Daniel Sullivan was deferred again, until April 21st.

[Thanks again to Alice P for keeping us up-to-date with the Canadian court action]

Noel Gallagher changes his mind

Having had everyone troop into court last week to sentence his attacker, only to insis through his lawyer that he wanted to appear to give a witness statement, yesterday the court was told that Noel had changed his mind:

Mr. Justice Richard Schneider reluctantly agreed to the delay, but at a hearing to set the new sentencing date of March 23 yesterday, prosecutor Ruth Kleinhenz told court Mr. Gallagher no longer plans to attend.

I'm not sure if the Canadian courts take a dim view of having to hold three separate sentencing gatherings on a whim of a rock star, but let's hope this doesn't mean that Noel can never set foot in Canada ever again for fear of being thrown in a jail.

[Thanks again to Alice P]

What do you call someone who takes 300,000 songs without paying?

Answer? A major label.

Turns out, while the music companies have been pushing to have file sharers thrown in debtor's prison, they've been quite happily releasing tracks they don't own. Getting on for a third of a million tracks:

The claims arise from a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as "exploit now, pay later if at all." It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences.

There's now to be a class action lawsuit against the labels in Canada.

Quite right, too: it's like stealing, isn't it?

Watch with No Rock: Halifax PopFest

You might enjoy at least some of the Halifax Pop Explosion highlights currently being splashed about by CBC Radio 3.

Folkobit: Taylor Mitchell

Horrible news: Taylor Mitchell has died after being attacked by coyotes at Cape Breton National Park in Nova Scotia.

The folk singer-songwriter was on tour in the area when the attack happened.

A recent graduate from the Etobicoke School of the Arts, Mitchell released her first album earlier this year. Produced by Michael Johnston, For Your Consideration featured a number of collaborations, including appearances by Jason Mercer and Anne Lindsay.

Taylor Mitchell was just 19 years old. Hikers who heard the attack had come to her aid, but she later died from injuries in hospital.

Downloadable: The Papertiger Sound

Fancy some lovely Yorkshire-meets-Canada electro-dreampop about robots? Of course you do. Get yourself over to CBC's daily download site and snaffle the mp3 of The Papertiger Sound's Tiny Robot Love. It will make your day better.

Canadian intellectual property capitalists display taste for irony

Wonderfully, the "independent" researchers appointed by The Conference Board of Canada to investigate copyright law turn out to have produced their report stressing the importance of respect for intellectual property by, erm, copying other people's work.

Oh, and attempts to produce a genuinely impartial report were undermined when the funders - copyright holders, since you ask - tried to get the contents changed to reflect their own interests.

Ignatieff starts fight with Paul McCartney

As if the idea of the Late Show's Michael Ignatieff becoming leader of the Canadian opposition isn't enough to try and digest, he's now developed a battle with Paul McCartney over wildlife policy.

And, by wildlife policy, Canadians usually mean 'killing seals'. Ignatieff wants to be left alone to club them in peace:

"We look at the culling of deer in Scotland and wolves in Europe by farmers and find it very frustrating to see this reaction to a carefully regulated and managed cull here, which is an economic mainstay of some of the poorest communities in Canada," he said.

"Europe's inability or refusal to see the seal cull for what is smacks of hypocrisy and misunderstanding.

"Paul McCartney, I love your music - but leave the seals to the people who know them. This is not marginal to us, this is very important."

I'd love to think that McCartney is drafting a reply, wondering if "Michael, I love your novels..." would just sound sarcastic.

Blame Canada

This is a week or so old now, but I never got round to mentioning it at the time: the US has added Canada to its list of nations which doesn't look after intellectual property rights.

Yes, the same Canada as the one you're thinking of. The one with the leaf on the flag. Although, to listen to Kira Alvarez, chief negotiator for intellectual property enforcement and Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative, you might as well viewa skull and two crossbones as being interchangeable with a maple leaf:

“We really do want them to adhere to their intellectual property obligations.”

You know what the report, Special 301 Report, is? It's a hoot, that's what it is:

Canada has for more than a decade now completely ignored their international treaty obligations, declining to incorporate those IP enforcement commitments into law. USTR cited this and also mentioned “continuing concern about weak border enforcement.”

Border enforcement? Seriously, America? You think that intellectual property can be contained with chain-link fences and a guy with a torch looking through a lorry? It's like thinking the solution to nuclear fall-out is a face mask and a parasol.

Tucked into the responses to the story on the Copyright Alliance Blog is this one:

Rowena Cherry Says:
May 1st, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Hmmm. When I saw “Canada” my blood started to boil.

I am sorry, Neal, I’m simply ready to believe almost any calumny of your countrymen because certain Canadian pharmacy representatives steal my identity in order to try to sell me (and my friends) products to improve the appearance and functioning of parts I do not possess (and do not wish to possess).

That is no doubt unfair, but allegedly Canadian pharmacy salespersons are interfering with my privacy, my peace of mind, and my ability to enjoy peaceful email communications with my friends.

They say they are Canadian. That’s why I believe they are Canadian. When your countrymen spam my desktop, in my home, in whatever country I live in, they ought to be subject to the laws of wherever they are trespassing.

Maybe if Canada could denounce the pharma spam, we’d all be happier.

So all Canadians should obey US law, because some people who claim to be Canadian send spam? That would certainly make life simpler for the United Nations, wouldn't it?

Actor Billy Bob Thornton quits

Well, it wasn't going well, was it? The actor Billy Bob Thornton has pulled the remaining support dates on Willie Nelson's Canadian tour.

Because all of Canada hate him.

Or, officially:

[D]ue to "one band member and several of the crew having the flu".

Flu that, magically, cures itself when you leave a country where you've called the audiences "mashed potatoes with no gravy". Funny that.

Actor Billy Bob Thornton takes his self-importance to the public

Having made a holy show of himself on Canadian radio, actor-turned-don't-call-him-actor Billy Bob Thornton has now started to make himself look stupid in front of a paying audience, too.

Thornton kicked off by referencing the coverage of his tiresome interview:

"It seems as if when I say something it's in the news," Thornton told the crowd, according to the Toronto Star.

Actually, not in "the news", Bobby Bill, but it does seem when you say something it turns up on the self-importance round-up.

The fans weren't all that impressed, and started booing.

Thornton replied, "Boo all you want, but I want to say something — we're really happy to be here, but I need to say something. I talked to this asshole yesterday."

To? Or out of?

Thornton went on to explain that the radio show's producers had promised not to make any references to his acting career.

But why? In God's name, why? It's like having Socrates on and him insisting that no reference be made to his philosophy. Well, not Socrates. Who would be the philosophical equivalent of Bobby's acting? Pa Boswell from Bread, probably.

"I don't really like sensationalism," he told the crowd at Massey Hall. "If you look someone in the eyes and promise them something, and you don't do it, you don't get the interview. That's the way it goes."

It's not really "sensationalism" to mention that you're an actor, though. It's surely a known fact?

The audience - who were really there for Willie Nelson - were having none of it:

Thornton's explanation did not satisfy the audience, and they began jeering, "Here comes the gravy," a reference to Thornton's description of Canadian audiences during the CBC interview as "mashed potatoes with no gravy."

Billy Bob Thornton is an actor.

IFPI's John Kennedy turns in a humorous new routine

John Kennedy clearly believes that it's only a matter of time before the record companies who underwrite his RIAA-lite, the IFPI, pull the plug and so seems to be counting out the final days turning himself into a parody-figure. After he brought the house down with his claim in court that every peer-to-peer download is really a lost sale, he's now turned up at Canada music week:

Canada’s continued development of world-class musicians is in jeopardy as the country is mired in sky-high piracy rates and lack of cooperation between Internet service providers and music companies, John Kennedy, chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said today at Canadian Music Week.

“The lack of interest in intellectual property by the Canadian government is truly astonishing,” says Kennedy, who participated in a industry forum this morning at Toronto's Royal York Hotel.

What he means, of course, is that the Canadian government isn't doing what the the RIAA wants it to, rather than "not having an interest".

It's not the money that Kennedy cares about, of course. Oh, no: he weeps for Canada's very soul:

Kennedy says one of his main concerns is the lack of new Canadian talent capturing attention domestically and internationally. He noted that according to Nielsen Soundscan, only two of the Top 20 selling albums in Canada – Nickelback and Quebec’s Lost Fingers – were created by domestic acts.

Yes, yes, Kennedy is the head of a global music industry body who is mainly bankrolled by the big four record companies - one from the US, one from Japan, one from France and one from the UK - and so his job is ultimately concerned with promoting the interests of global artists who force out local talent all round the world, but let's not let that detain us here.

Nor, for that matter, if Canadians might happily chose to lose all their local acts if there was a possibility of it taking Nickelback down with it.

Let's just ponder for a moment if it's all the unusual for the Canadian charts to be rammed with foreign acts. Take, for example, the top ten singles for January 5th, 1980. A happier time, before the internet, and before - we presume - the Canadian government lost interest in intellectual property. Tom Petty was at number one; the Little River Band at number two. In fact, the highest Canadian act would be Streetheart at number nine. Oh, and Saga were at number 20.

Perhaps that's an unfair example. Let's look instead at June 7th, 1986: Madonna, George Michael and Jennifer Rush holding the top three slots; indeed, by the time you get past the scouse, Swiss, British novelty acts, it's number 16 before you come across a Canadian act. Chalk Circle, since you ask.

Are we to assume that John Kennedy simply doesn't know that the Canadian charts have long been dominated by British and American acts, or that he did know, but decided to pretend he didn't? The Canadian government might or might not care about intellectual property; I wonder what their stance is on intellectual honesty?