Fuse Magazine: Cutting Out Collage…

Fuse Magazine: Cutting Out Collage: CARFAC and the License to do Business
Jonathan Culp

It is June 2006. Stephen Harper and “Canada’s New Government” are half a year into their mandate, and the Ministries of Heritage and Industry are receiving advice about reforms to Canada’s copyright law. America’s (not so new) government is on the phone of course, but so are myriad domestic lobby groups such as the Canadian Recording Industry Association, the Creators’ Rights Alliance and Canadian Artists Representation (CARFAC). The Liberals’ Bill C-60 may have died with their government, but these diverse voices continue to advance its agenda: new, more stringent controls on users’ rights, to benefit and underwrite the professional producers of art and culture.

Meanwhile, a new organization has set out to advance different argument: Appropriation Art, “’a coalition of arts professionals’,” presents a petition to parliament. In a mere three weeks, this modest initiative had secured over 600 endorsements, including many individual artists and curators as well as the Independent Media Arts Alliance, the Canadian Museums Association and regional media arts cooperatives such as CSIF and LIFT.

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