Recording Industry Sullies Multiple Reputations
I've been following this piece on the Copyright report from the Conference Board of Canada ever since it broke and these latest developments make it a must follow. Amazing what good reporting and perseverance on the part of people like Michael Geist can do. We all know that groups like the Canadian Recording Industry and their American counterparts play hard (and now it would seem dirty) in their quest to lock up IP and maintain the old models of doing business, but this kind of desperate act is just sad. Why not just play by the rules, instead of ruining their reputation and that of a supposedly unbiased research group along with them? Who will ever again trust the output of the Conference Board of Canada, "the foremost independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada?" Of for that fact, the funders of the report: U.S. and Canadian chambers of commerce, the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, the Copyright Collective of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation? What other reports have been doctored to meet the demands of those footing the bill?
As a rule, pretty much any report funded by a party with a significant commercial interest in the outcome. See also biomedical research.
Posted by: Jonathan Rochkind | June 11, 2009 at 12:05 AM