Copyrights Board of Canada Dismisses Reporter's Questions on Tariff 22 as Stupid

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Copyrights Board of Canada Dismisses Reporter's Questions on Tariff 22 as Stupid
By Hervé St-Louis
November 4, 2008 - 08:36

The Comic Book Bin is working on a complicated story about the new copyrights tariffs that were imposed on Canadians on behalf of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). When we called the Copyrights Board of Canada, the phone operator told us in French " Je n'ai pas à répondre à des bêtises du public." Or in English "I do not have to answer stupid requests from the public." The questions politely asked by The Comic Book Bin were about how the Copyrights Board of Canada communicated to Canadians and invited them to participate in the process of copyrights policy decisions.

Granted the operator told The Comic Book Bin that one of their senior representative would get back to us later this week, when asked what were the stupid request we had made, she did not answer. Although the Web site of the Copyrights Board of Canada, a federal government agency working on behalf of Canadians invites questions from the public, in practice, it seems that they have another way of understanding their mandate and issues of transparencies. The Copyrights Board of Canada has not offered any apologies.

More on the story of Tariff 22 which were updated on October 24, 2008 and how they negatively affects Canadians, later this week.