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iCraveTV To Relaunch
BurpingWeezer writes "The CBC has a story about iCraveTV relaunching their service this fall. Apparently they will be broadcasting some channels for free but they will focus on specialty channels like MuchMusic. The specialty channels are to be broadcast on a subscription basis for around C$9 a month. iCraveTV is currently developing security software to restrict users of the web site to those of Canadian origin. Under Canadian copyright laws television broadcasts may be re-broadcast without permission if there is no modification to the broadcast in any form." I'm interested to see how they'll make sure I'm Canadian through software.
They could check each IP against the
American Registry for Internet Numbers at whois.arin.net, which happens to list the owner of nearly every IP in the Americas.
Anyone not matching, or not listed, could be denied.
Of course, there is always a way to work around this. Then again, all encryption exports are curbed in the same manner, and it's acceptable to the government. Add a click-through agreement, and you're set for legality.
Hmm.. It's strange they didn't ask:
If you walk down to the nearest McDonalds and order Pizza, do they laugh at you? (McD's sells pizza here)
Do you avoid drinking Mountain Dew after supper because of the high caffeine content? (Dew doesn't contain caffeine here)
Color or Colour? (detects Americans, but not Brits)
Which is correct: "I'm gonna go buy a soda" or "I'm gonna go buy a pop"?
Did you hear of the Bare Naked Ladies before 1997?
What about Blue Rodeo, or the Tragically hip?
Does Moses Znaimer control your pop culture?
Is your takehome pay actually LOWER since you got that raise last month, due to taxes?
Where's Nunavut?
What's east of Quebec?
I could go on and on, but I won't. This is already offtopic enough.
"I'm interested to see how they'll make sure I'm Canadian through software."
:)
The software will use DragonSpeak and verify that you repeat the phrase "Roll up the rim to win." correctly.
Ack. Sorry...Canadians in the crowrd will recognize a moderately bad Tim Horton's commercial
Dana
To view TV content off the net requires more than dialup. So that the market segment is minute. and how many Canadians are there? 25 Million? how many have good connections? 1%? of those, who will want this?
----------------
Programming, is like sex.
Nah -- it's not that I'm an American, it's that I blabber[1]. When asked where I went to college in an over-the-phone credit card application, I gave lots of detail, including the per-capita income rank in the U.S. of the county in which it's located[2].
[1] Unless you are saying there are no Canadians who blabber, in which case I will be forced to name a long list of prominent Canadians who do. And I'll probably also throw in their political affiliations, home towns, and other detail.
[2] Third in the U.S., after Manhattan and whatever county Silicon Valley's located in. And we still don't have a four-star restauraunt within a hundred miles.
Steven E. Ehrbar
just-ask-for-roger-at-video-bargainville dept ... great Moxy Früvous reference!
...
Once I was the King of Spain
If I'd have known it was really this easy, I'd have written a perl script to automatically submit slashback's as news!!!
ICraveTV's service provider is ACEnetx.com
If you checkout www.acenetx.com, there is the technology that ICraveTV will use to restrict content to Canadians.
This technology trademarked: "Ask Vinnie"
ACEnetx has pattented "Ask Vinnie" technology that allows companies such as ICraveTV to restrict their content to specific geographical regions.
- AB - Alberta
- BC - British Columbia
- MB - Manitoba
- NB - New Brunswick
- NF - Newfoundland
- NS - Nova Scotia
- ON - Ontario
- PE - Prince Edward Island
- QC - Quebec
- SK - Saskatchewan
All the site would have to do is make sure the domain ends withOr they could, by working with the Canadian Government, make a list of ALL of the ISPs that operate out of Canada, and filter for their domains exclusively.
.- CitizenC (User Info)
I am Canadian (Quicktime movie)
What behind canadian is all about. =)
-Earthling
-Earthling
"I'm sorry, I had to; the irony was just too thick."
Did you hear of the Bare Naked Ladies before 1997?
What about Blue Rodeo, or the Tragically hip?
"No, because CBC Radio 2 doesn't play those during drive-time. Sue me for liking Mozart."
Where's Nunavut?
"It's the Inuit territory carved out of the Norhwest Territories. And I personally prefer the proposal to rename the rest of the Northwest Territories 'Bob' to the proposal to name it 'Aurora'."
What's east of Quebec?
Answer 1:
"Newfoundland and New Brunswick. Then Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island east of New Brunswick."
Answer 2:
"The Maritimes, the last stronghold of the Progressive Conservatives. I wish they'd face facts and join the United Alternative."
------------------
Oh, BTW, I'm an American. Cross-border broadcasting works both ways.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Still, not everyone in Canada has a .ca address... for example, most (all?) of the .wave.home.com people are Canada.
--
http://www.alphapython.com/ for $20 domains
__
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
1. Canada has a President? True/False
2. We drive dog sleds?
3. You can say the RRRR in Roll up the rim to win.
News for UW students
It's a fun little command, I bet they'll make ample use of it and either ban any IP that's not in Canada, or restrict it to just Canadian registered IPs. That's kinda tricky, though. Knowing iCraveTV from the past, though, they'll just put in a half-assed security effort, as they believe everyone should be allowed to access it, like before, only having to input a canadian area code. It was funny looking on all these websites that mentioned the site, they all said "To access this site, you must live in Canada and input a Canadian area code... such as 612, 451...", It was great ;)
Are you or have you ever been a citizen of Canada, and are you accessing this web site from within the borders of Canada, member of the British Commonwealth?
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
It could be as simple as using credit card info. Presumably, the 9 bucks (that's 6 bucks US, BTW) would be payed by Credit Card. When credit card orders go through, I know that some customer info is listed. I know that name is one of them, but I'm not sure about adress. I'm sure that if they use a Canadian bank for the credit card stuff they can check if the parent account for the card is of local origin (I mean, if I go out of country, the machines know to convert the money, right?). So that's how it could be done.
On another note, to those who seem to be quoting that excellent "I Am Rant" beer commercial, if you haven't seen it yet, go visit: http://www.adcritic.com/cont ent/edge-102-i-am-not.html (this is at least as funny!). Sorry to people who can't play QuickTime. =(
Any self-respecting resident of the Metro Detroit Area would get those two *easy*.
And as an American who watches "This Hour Has 22 Minutes", I doubt there's much that could trip me up without getting a large number of Canadians, too.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Some older Canadian dictionaries give color as the correct spelling with colour as an alternative. The Gage Canadian Dictionary (circa 1977) is like that. However, the newer ones list the -our spellings first. Back in the '50s, Canadian spelling was a lot more British than American in other ways; in high school, my mom used spellings like programme and encyclopædia. I prefer program, but I've got to love the "ae" ligature in encyclopædia.
I've also noticed, in more recent years, a lot more Americans spelling cancelled as canceled, as Noah Webster (inventor of American spelling) intended. Perhaps that's because, although American dictionaries have always given canceled as the correct spelling, so many Americans used cancelled and assumed it correct that few people bothered to check. The proliferation of spelling checkers on word processors is probably what has caused the change.
It's kind of silly the way dictionaries try to influence spelling and fail. I've seen British dictionaries that tell the Brits to use -ize in words like realize, organize, etc., but -ise (as in realise, etc.) is still extremely common in the U.K.
I've recently been alarmed by a lot of my fellow Canadians calling the last letter of the alphabet "zee" instead of "zed". Oh, well. At least we know that "zee" == "zed". I heard of one guy whose last name was "Fitzpatrick" and liked to order stuff by phone. Sometimes, when asked to spell his name, the operator on the other end would ask what a "zed" was. I guess I know where the other end of the line was...
"What is your name?"
:-)
Chris.
"What is your quest?"
I would like to sign up for iCraveTV.
"What is the water-speed velocity of a beaver?"
African or European?
"I don't know that!, AHHHHH!!"
Hell, how many non-Canadians would even know the beaver is the national animal? (It's the most fearsome creature you have ever seen!
I'm interested to see how they'll make sure I'm Canadian through software.
My guess is they'll have some sort of "quiz" sort of like Leisure Suit Larry did back in the day (they figured if you knew the answers to certain questions, you're probably of age).
For example:
The common name for Coca Cola is:
a) soft drink
b) pop
c) soda
Of course the correct answer is B.
Gordie Howe was:
a) a Prime Minister
b) a CNN news anchor
c) a hockey player
...and so on.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
In my experience (which I won't pretend is representative), the majority of Canadian Internet users use cable modem or ADSL. In cities, cable modem and 56K modem access are about the same price.
So I'm going to say there are around almost one million households who would be the market for this. Mind you if the cable modem, the probably have cable TV. So that brings their market down to about one person, Joe in Windsor, who's too lazy to move his fat ass to the living room to watch his TV.
So I agree with you: there isn't a very big market for this.
Name the Canadian Provences.
There's only one Provence, it's in France.
George
Perhaps, so they can get your credit card information, and hence, know what country you live in?
So? we're talking about canadian second-level domains here....
Yup. Internet users in general.
In Canada, I'd sure like to see the numbers, but I'd bet that a great many people have broadband (as you call it).
High-speed access is available in most towns and cities in Canada now, in many cases, from multiple providers.
For instance, here in Calgary..we have cable, and 2 dsl providers.. plus emerging wireless stuff...
I'm interested to see how they'll make sure I'm Canadian through software.
:-)
I recently tried signing up for this service, despite the fact I'm American. I can tell you they're very serious about making sure only Canadians sign up. Here's how the signup process went.
Service: So, your Canadian, eh?
Me: Uh, yeah, I am........eh!
Service: OK, so we just have to verify that, you know. Question #1: What is the worst movie of all time?
Me: Strange Brew.
Service: Correct. Question #2: What's up with those Americans?
Me: I don't know, they need to relax a little I suppose.
Service: Right. OK, just one last question. Question #3: Who's the greates hockey player of all time?
Me: Um, that would probably have to be Wayne Gretsky.....eh?
Service:.....That all you got to say on the subject?
Me: Uh, yeah, I guess.
Service: You poser! A real Canadian would have argued the point for 2 hours solid!
Busted. So as you can see, their methods are totally full-proof. No American can talk about hockey for 2 hours straight.
>I'm interested to see how they'll
>make sure I'm Canadian through software
login.html:
<FORM ACTION="mainpage.php3">
<INPUT TYPE=CHECKBOX NAME="can">
By clicking this button, I acknowlege that I am Canadian, and that I am NOT a citizen of another country, trying to gain unauthorized access to your network. This is a legally binding contract between myself and the service provider. [insert rest of legal gobblygook here.]
<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="I AM CANADIAN">
</FORM>
"ICraveTV Canadian-ness Challenge: Complete the following sentence: "Beauty, ____!"
And of course, Hockey questions could be their bread-and-butter....