There was definitely a concerted effort on the part of lobbyists to make sure numbers were in the seats. I almost laughed when they gasped at being called lobbyists.

I found a condescending tone around the room, especially among music execs, that someone "music" (and in one case "Canadian culture" itself) was depending on its monetization. Canadian music, art, and culture in general existed long before someone figured out how to monetize it. Selling Avril Lavigne across the world is NOT spreading Canadian culture!

While I would love an idealized system of free use or Creative Commons approaches to all work, I'm all for a modified system of Fair Use that is actually fair, and motivates a new system of digital monetization that feeds money back to artists instead of corporate machines.

Last night was disappointing. Maybe hold it in Hamilton next time and the execs wouldn't drive down the QEW.

I was apart of the webcast, and we got an official letter from the Government of Canada on August 26th, 2009. Point #4 is quite interesting:

Thank you for signing up for the Toronto Copyright Town Hall! We are in the final stages of preparation and are looking forward to a successful event.

The Toronto Town Hall is expected to be our largest copyright consultation event, with participation not only from those in the room, but also from Canadians sending in online comments and views. We wanted to provide you with some information in advance so that registered participants can start thinking about their contribution to this important dialogue.

1.The host for the evening will be the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry. He will be onstage all night and will offer brief closing remarks once you, the participants, have had your say.

2.The evening will be moderated by a third-party facilitator to help ensure we hear from as many people as possible in our limited time together. Her job will be to coordinate the online and in-person discussions and keep everything running on time.

3.Due to the large number of registered participants, those wishing to speak at the Town Hall will be selected by lottery.

4.In addition to those who registered for the Town Hall through the website, we have invited some individuals and organizations who specialize in copyright issues or can speak on behalf of a large number of Canadians for whom copyright is a significant issue. So that everyone can benefit from a breadth of perspectives, we will also be calling on some of them -- again, selected by lottery - to present their points of view.

5.Online participants will be able to submit comments throughout the evening. Comments will be chosen at random and read onstage at regular intervals by a designated official.

The Town Hall will get underway promptly at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 27, 2009. If you have general inquiries about the copyright consultations, please contact info@copyrightconsultation.gc.ca.

I wouldn't call it a sham, but it was a bad night for individual voices. Industry groups and copyright maximalist groups had enough presence that when any number of their group were called their leaders could go up and present their view (unless you believe fate was on their side and all their leaders just happened to win the lottery before any of the rest of their group).

Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, if you believe that Mr Clement is smart enough to reject the ridiculous arguments presented, all that the industry execs, IP laywers, collection agencies and copyright groups had to say came down to: 1) Save our jobs 2) We work hard, we deserve to make money 3) Things are terrible because our laws aren't strong enough

The rest of us were awed that there executives and lawyers who believe that the government should guaranteed they have a job for life. People who have the temerity to complain about some new technologies impacting their industry... a job that this only possible because of the development of earlier technologies that created their industry and ended others. What technology giveth, technology taketh away.

I also missed the memo whereby in a free market if you work hard you *deserve* to get paid.

But I guess things must be going so much better for the recording industry in the US because they seemed sure that if we make our laws the same as theirs Canadian industry would be saved. Oops.

How the hell do these people get paid 6 figure salaries with arguments like this?

Granted with a few exceptions the arguments and ideas from individuals weren't any better. But it was pretty obvious which people actually used the internet, knew the difference between physical property and digital information, and appreciated the meaningful impact that access to creative work has made on their lives - and could make on the lives of others. You could divide the room in half by age and you'd do a pretty good job of separating out the clueless except for a few confused artists who've been so badly abused by the current industry they believe it is actually the "pirates" that have screwed them over.

I worked hard on this post, I deserve to get paid!

As a long-time participant in this area of policy (volunteering half my work-day for a few years), I received a special non-invitation to this event. http://www.digital-copyright.ca/discuss/7057 I'm glad I didn't spent the hundreds of dollars it would have taken me to attend give it was clear the recording industry spent a fair bit on this. The attacks by the extremists on rightsholders were embarrassing, and in this I lump together both the recording industry executives and the "proud pirate" -- both of which seek to harm rightsholders like myself.

Longer comments at: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/5044

Joke of the evening was Clement thanking the group for not degrading into the style of the US Healthcare debate. On Twitter we had said it was an hour earlier, given the industry representatives were using false statistics to make their claims. When the strawman got to the microphone (In this case a pirate, but in the healthcare debate a Canadian who falsely thinks our health care kills people), the format was complete.

How was it a sham? Because the Geist crowd failed to show up? I registered online and easily got in. Then speaking was based on a lottery system. So yeah, the music industry because they showed up in high numbers were able to speak the most. Geist had postings on his blog, twitter and facebook group urging supporters to show up. They didn't. I'm all for criticizing Tories, but how's it their fault that the so-called "greater public" (which I assume you don't include artists since a few did show up to speak) didn't attend?

Dan, you say that the only issue was that people who are not copyright maximalists didn't show up. You need to research this further before you misinform people. If you search around for an example of the email invites, you'll see that the government specifically set aside a number of attendance and speaking positions for industry lobbyists. Very likely, many or all of the "artists" who spoke were chosen by their masters at their record labels or publishers to take speaking positions that were guaranteed to those industries. Meanwhile, I know regular citizens who flew in from far provinces to attend, and who did not get a chance to speak.

Note that, while I see Geist as a relative voice of reason in this debate, I do not agree with his positions. It's just that he's clearly looking for a copyright law which would be good for Canadian citizens, while the incumbent intermediaries are clearly looking for a law which will maximize their profits, and at the expense of Canadian citizens and authors if need be. So don't patronize me and, by extension, thousands (or millions?) of other sensible Canadian citizens by labeling us "the Geist crowd".

If you promote the event as a way to consult with Canadians then what happened is clearly a sham process.

Dave - I am aware how the town hall was set up and Anon already posted the email invite above. Did you attend the town hall? I was there - so too were many "regular citizens" like the fellow from Fair Copyright who basically just said how proud he was to distribute Passchendaele online for free. You could also participate online and have your concerns read aloud. Look, I'm not some Tory shill, but just because your particular concerns were supposedly not addressed as frequently as you'd prefer doesn't make the entite town hall a sham.

As for the "artists" as your put it - just because they want to get paid for their work, you're questionning their artistic legitimcay? Is that why you put the word in quotations? And I'm the one who's patronizing by using the label "Geist crowd." Makes sense.

Just for the record, I spoke with the "pirate" who was wearing a Fair Copyright for Canada shirt afterwards. He wasn't from, nor did he represent Fair Copyright, he just saw the t-shirt earlier and thought "it was cool."