Canadian TV to Adopt DRM-Free BitTorrents

An anonymous reader writes "Canada's public broadcast network, CBC, is to adopt DRM free BitTorrent distribution of one of its major primetime shows, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. The effort has already been hailed by Canadian copyright guru Michael Geist, who expects the decision to add fuel to Canada's net neutrality debate. A CBC producer behind the show told CNET that the motivation for the move was that CBC 'wanted the show to be as accessible as possible to as many Canadians as possible, in the format that they want it in.' As for DRM, she said 'I think DRM is dead, even if a lot of broadcasters don't realize it.' She added that 'if it's bad for the consumers, its bad for the company.'"

Comments

throttling from bell and rogers

[jmcnaught]

Hopefully this means that Bell and Rogers will both have to stop throttling Bittorrent downloads. Some days on rogers I would get faster downloads on dialup.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[AikonMGB]

An excellent point that I didn't even think of until you mentioned it. I totally agree; I'm on Bell where I am and it's awful; ALL of my P2P traffic is capped to 30KiB/s and it's quite painful when I should be able to access that content in a matter of minutes as opposed to a matter of hours.

Aikon-

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[whisper_jeff]

Try activating encryption in your bit torrent client. I'm certain you'll see a dramatic difference.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[TobyWong]

They don't need to inspect the packets to identify them as p2p. Encryption doesn't do a damn thing for me (Rogers) unless I tunnel it all through a VPN.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[esaul]

Fortunately, as opposed to the US, you do not have to solely depend on large ISPs as Bell, Videotron or Rogers. Remember this story? There are dozens of independent ISPs, and while they often use Bell's networks, I have not seen any throttling on P2P as of yet. I routinely get speeds of close to 500KB/s.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[BForrester]

I'm on Rogers, and it works for me. If there are sufficient seeders and peers, I regularly get up to 600 KB / sec on regular high-speed, up from 20 KB / sec without.

Make sure you're using a non-standard port. Also, don't force encryption, just enable it. That will net you encrypted traffic + whatever low level of throttled traffic your ISP allows.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[compro01]

I don't think that will help. Last I heard, Rogers throttles all encrypted traffic.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[the brown guy]

speaking of VPN's, if i have a vpn connected so i can access online journals with my university.....(i dont really get it, im an arts student not comp sci lol) does all my traffic go through there?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to schedule your downloads. Sympatico throttles during prime time ours only. It's a pain but at least it's not 100% of the time.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[brunascle]

and how are they supposed to know what is and isnt encrypted? are they looking for authentication handshakes? or are they just assuming all non-plaintext traffic is encrypted?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a VPN just to access your journals? What are you using to connect?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[rucs_hack]

My P2P traffic is capped as well, I say we should blame Ca..

Oh wait..

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Abcd1234]

They don't need to inspect the packets to identify them as p2p

Uhh, yes, they do. While, unless you're using a standard P2P port. 'course, if you're doing that, you're not that serious about circumventing your ISPs throttling (BTW, I'm on Shaw, and while they throttle, enabling encryption and using a non-standard port gets around it quite neatly).

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[TobyWong]

Let me clarify a little. I have encryption enabled and I do get high speed downloads, it's my upstream that is throttled to hell and back. Upstream usually floats around 1 - 4 k/s. Once in a while I will temporarily get a fast upstream connection to some other client and I assume what is happening here is I am connected to another Rogers user so it is exempt from the throttling rules. If I force all my traffic through a ssh tunnel then suddenly my upstream shoots up near where it should be (80+ k/s).

My guess is that under normal circumstances Rogers is able to identify the traffic patterns of p2p (tons of connections to many different clients) without needing to look inside the individual packets. They then go ahead and close off most of the connections which results in the throttling. If I force it all through my ssh tunnel, it's all going to 1 host so it no longer looks like p2p traffic, just some unidentifiable high speed encrypted stream and therefore it's not subject to throttling.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Mozaholic]

Well with Sympatico encryprtion does nothing.
It seems like I get a max of 30kb/sec between like Noon and Midnight.
With full speed coming between Midnight and Noon.

Even plenty of seeders and peers makes no difference.
Around Noon, even with thousands of seeders downloading at about 300kB/sec, just drops to 30kB/sec.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Minwee]

Absolutely. Why would Rogers, whose major business is in selling cable TV services, and Bell, who sell the same content via satellite, _not_ want to provide their Internet customers with high speed free access to TV programs that they would otherwise have to, um, pay for.

That is, pay the big Cable and Satellite providers for.

You know, have to pay Rogers and Bell for.

Wait. Why is this a good idea for them again?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[neil-ngc]

Have you tried transport encryption?

Shaw also throttles BT traffic. To the point where unencrypted torrents barely move. Turned on encryption, and speeds went back up to the 300kB/s range.

Azureus supports this feature, and pretty much makes it idiot proof to use. I'm sure there's other clients that it'll work on, but I'm not sure which ones.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using an ISP that doesn't insult you by throttling your downloads in the first place. Why pay the bastards when you're not happy with their service? For an alternative, the smaller ISPs come to mind.

I've been using Velcom (velcom.ca for more info) over Bell Sympatico for over a year now and I both pay less and get a better DSL service. YMMV.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Hatta]

Yes, it does.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC 'cause I already modded you up but you are correct in your observations. The only time I get anything above ~10k/s upload is when I'm uploading to a Rogers/Comcast/OtherCableProvider. Download speeds are always fast.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Anonymous Coward]

lol what?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[jhylkema]

Get Shaw, they don't throttle. I'm a Shaw customer and I've had great luck with them.

And no, I'm not an astroturfer.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[darthdavid]

Deluge has encryption enabled by default.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Deliveranc3]

Bell has me "Locked" to their sympatico service. Which means they will let me get Sympatico but they won't allow anyone else to provide it.

Which of course totally blows, I was going to go with teksavvy.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[jhylkema]

Tres' gauche to respond to one's own post, I know. I wanted to add that Shaw's tech support actively supports BitTorrent and will tell you exactly how to set it up.

Again, not an astroturfer, just a very happy customer. Stay away from Telus, they suck. When their guy didn't show up despite my giving them an all-day window, I called Shaw. They were out the next day and got me up and running. Telus finally deigned to grace me with their presence the next day. So, for about two days, I had both Telus and Shaw and had the opportunity to test them head to head. Needless to say, Shaw won hands down. In addition, Telus' wireless router was a piece of shit. It dropped my connection every minute or so even when I was sitting two feet from it. By contrast, my Netgear router has never dropped it a single time.

I've had great luck with Telus' cell phone and AirCard service and will heartily recommend them. Their internet? Not so much. They need to spend less on pretty fish pictures.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[cortex3299]

If your vpn connected is using split tunnel it would not. You should be able to tell by looking at the route table.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[the brown guy]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[jandrese]

I wish P2P designers would take a cue from the internet worm designers and prioritize "nearby" IP addresses first when choosing from a list (IE, if someone is in the same /16 as you, choose them over someone in a totally foreign network). My guess is that it would improve your throughput enough to make it worth the effort, and it would be really simple to add the logic.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[tattood]

Uhh, yes, they do. While, unless you're using a standard P2P port.
They don't need to read the packets, because they can tell based on number of connections. A "normal" web connection to a website will probably only get you maybe 5-10 different IP destinations, depending on where and how many banner ads and images are on the site. They are also started and finished fairly quickly, so the total amount of traffic is not alot. All they need to do is look for a constant high amount of bandwidth from a single IP address to more than, say, 30 hosts, and they can be pretty sure that it is some sort of P2P traffic. All they do then is QoS that source IP, and you're throttled.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[billcopc]

How does that work ? I thought they were required by law to grant CLECs access to the lines. I obviously don't know the details in your case, but if they're not giving you good excuses, I'd verbally tear them several new assholes until you get what you want. From what friends have told me, TekSavvy is da bomb.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Guspaz]

If by "locked", you mean you need to pay an ETF to get out, you're not really stuck. They're required by law to offer wholesale service, assuming you're hooked up to an ADSL or ADSL2+ DSLAM.

You might still want to consider a $10/mth secondary login with TekSavvy (not advertised, but still available). 100GB of bandwidth per month. Not a huge amount, but it's still a lot better than what you're getting with Bell (and you can add another 100GB for another $10 per month).

Of course, you'd still have to pay your full Sympatico bill, as the TekSavvy login is just a PPPoE account. If your Sympatico subscription is PPPoE-based, you can get a secondary login and avoid the throttling and ultra-low caps.

I suggest you call in (1-877-779-1575) between 8AM and 2AM EST and discuss your options with TekSavvy. I'm sure they can work something out with you.

If you'd be so kind, because your situation is quite interesting, it'd be appreciated if you could post about your story in the official TekSavvy forums (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/teksavvy), as I'm sure many of us would be very interested in hearing the details of your issues with Bell.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[taylortbb]

You can get a TekSavvy login-only account for $10/month. Your line is still with Bell but they give you a PPPoE login to their network so you use their transit and avoid throttling. It's not advertised but if you phone in and ask you can get it.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[taylortbb]

TekSavvy BBR-user groupthink, you beat me to posting about logins by 1 minute.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[billcopc]

The problem, of course, is when P2P starts prioritizing same-network peers, ISPs will start throttling inside and piss on everyone's parade.

It's never been about bandwidth, there's tons of bandwidth. It's about control.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[taylortbb]

The latter. It's driving people nuts, VPNs are throttled, HTTPS is throttled, etc.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[SpiderClan]

They often lock people in with long contracts that prevent switching or cancelling of service on penalty of significant fees.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Breakfast Pants]

Seeing as bittorrent uses >50% of the internet's bandwidth, somehow I think it's about bandwidth, not control.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[jamstar7]

OK, point of interest here...

You have a Sympatico account. You sign up for Techsavvy as a secondary. Doesn't the 'last mile' still come through Sympatico? And won't you still be subject to their throttling?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[jonaskoelker]

They don't need to inspect the packets to identify them as p2p

Uhh, yes, they do Uhh, no, they don't, actually. There are things besides the data that give away encrypted protocols. Parameters previously used: {mean,variance} of {client-to-server,server-to-client} {packet size, interpacket time gap} and the (Shannon) entropy [1]. You could probably also look at the port numbers, how often the TCP PSH flag is used, and how many connections with similar parameters have already been made.

[1] http://www.shmoocon.org/2007/presentations.html and (mp4 warning) Encrypted Protocol Identification

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[PsychoSlashDot]

You have a Sympatico account. You sign up for Techsavvy as a secondary. Doesn't the 'last mile' still come through Sympatico? And won't you still be subject to their throttling?

Not exactly. DSL services are handled by a division of Bell called Nexxia. ISPs, Sympatico included are all attached to the Nexxia infrastructure. If a consumer subscribes with an independent ISP, that ISP issues a service order to Bell to provision the copper 'last mile'. A Bell tech goes to the CO (Central Office) and hooks up some Nexxia gear to the subscriber's copper. Nexxia bills the ISP, the ISP bills the subscriber, and everyone's happy. Yes, Sympatico is a Bell Canada division as well, but they're effectively a subscriber to the Nexxia division just the same as any other DSL ISP.

An amusing aside to all of this is that the end-user technically can't call up Bell and request removal of services, for instance in the case that they wish to change providers. They aren't the purchaser of the DSL service. Twisted, but true. The subscriber needs the current ISP to issue a service-removal order to Bell/Nexxia.

I personally had an entertaining time moving off Sympatico to a local provider a few years ago. I called Sympatico and was told that there were exactly two days a month when I was ALLOWED to terminate my service, and I'd just missed my two days by a couple days. I'd be stuck another month. I told them I was content to lose the service for the remainder of the month and continue paying, but they wouldn't allow it. I spoke to Bell's DSL provisioning department, and they told me they couldn't accept service instructions from me. I talked to the owner of my (then) new ISP, and he placed a provisioning order anyway. A Bell tech went out, and disconnected my copper from Nexxia's DSLAM to one of his (this ISP has their own DSLAMs in some COs, still backend connected to Nexxia). The tech thought something was amiss but did the work. I was happy. My sync rates went up, everything was grand, and I started to wait until I could cancel Sympatico. Two days later, I lost sync. We made some calls. The tech had investigated and found out that I didn't have a cancel-service order from Sympatico, so went back and moved my copper back into Nexxia's DSLAM. My ISP made a phone call, spoke to the tech personally, who then re-corrected "illegally", and that tech knew to wait for and disregard the eventual Symaptico de-provisioning order when it came. Eventually I cancelled with Sympatico and everything's been heaven since.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[canajin56]

I'm on Bell Sympatico DSL. My upload usually doesn't go much faster than 100-200, and is usually only 30-40...but I download at 300 kilobyes or higher if it's a busy swarm. Dunno what you are talking about, maybe your swarms aren't busy or the people in them are the ones capping the transfer on you ;)

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[taylortbb]

Bell is split up into two sections, Bell Nexxia which provides DSL connectivity and Bell Sympatico which provides internet connectivity using DSL lines from Bell Nexxia. Nexxia doesn't sell their DSL connectivity service just to Sympatico, any company can buy service from them. The most common is use is for other DSL ISPs to offer internet service, but it would also be possible for a large company (it's expensive) to create a private WAN using this service. When you perform PPPoE authentication Nexxia examines the domain and determines which network to send your traffic too, with a TekSavvy login it goes there, with a Sympatico login it's routed to Sympatico's network. Nexxia doesn't throttle (this would really piss off their enterprise customers), it's Sympatico that does. So your last mile isn't really Bell Sympatico, it's Bell Nexxia. As long as someone is paying Nexxia for your DSL connectivity, they don't care about what PPPoE login you use. Nexxia owns the regional ATM network that DSL service connects to and all ISPs get gig-e links into the network to connect customers to their transit. It's between the gig-e and the transit that Sympatico throttles.

When you buy standard ($30/month) internet service from TekSavvy you're basically paying $20/month for the DSL and $10/month for the login. Sympatico works the same way, $20/month is paid to Nexxia. Sympatico doesn't offer the login without the DSL service, TekSavvy (and other resellers) do.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[AikonMGB]

Erm, no. During "non-peak" hours (whatever those are.. I have never been told when "peak" is), my upload is well above 50KiB/s (I cap it to 50 out of personal preference, but this is beside the point anyway); my downloads normally run about 500KiB/s. Come "peak hours" (this time does not seem to be consistent from night to night), these download speeds drop suddenly to 30KiB/s on the dot and sit there for the rest of the night.

I have performed this test with both public and private trackers; and by private trackers I don't just mean "invite-only" trackers, I also mean someone with a private server that set up a tracker specifically for me to test this out. Just because you aren't getting capped doesn't mean other people aren't. I suggest you be grateful for what you have =/

Aikon-

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Von Rex]

Several times I've heard on here that Bell throttles torrents but I don't know what the full situation is. Can anyone explain?

I've got the Bell Sympatico Ultra DSL service (5 Mbps connection) in Ontario and I download torrents like crazy. It's not uncommon for me to get 200-300 K per second on a particular torrent. So what's going on here?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Starayo]

100GB a month, not a huge amount, he says.

Oh, for an ISP that did that much, that fast, that cheaply in Australia... ;_;

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[theheadlessrabbit]

I was on shaw@home for broadband way back when I was in highschool (Y2K-ish), and it was great, I never had a single problem with Shaw.

then Rogers came through our area and took over for shaw.

the day we were switched to rogers@home, download speeds were cut in half, and on average, my internet was down one day a month. soon after, prices shot way up.

rogers was terrible, but the only options in my area were rogers, sympatico, or dial-up, 3 bad options, and rogers was the least bad, so i was stuck with them untill i moved to south korea and got good internet service.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Deliveranc3]

It is as the Teksavvy representative states, they want me to pay $50-100 for a tech to come out and test the line. The connection is made and their testing from their end indicates that my service should be fantastic (across the street & behind us they both get excellent service M6G2c7 is my postal code, Braemore Gardens south side).

I am not allowed to take my chances with the line, they require that I pay a tech to come... the $ isn't really the issue, the problem is that Bell has imposed a tax that lets them protect their monopoly and bypass regulations.

I am NOT with Bell currently, though Rogers is no better. They just offer to hook me up without sending a tech!

The best part is the phone lines SPLIT BEHIND MY HOUSE, I can see the lines that go to "O.K." homes splitting from my lines that go to "Locked" houses (Including mine).

Again the representative with Teksavy did not seem surprised that Bell was doing this.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[cortex3299]

Depending on how the vpn device is setup. One way is to have all the traffic from your computer sent thought the vpn tunnel. The split tunnel way is to only have the networks that are needed to sent thought the tunnel. Example: Where you are vpning into uses 10.x.x.x network. In a split tunnel configuration you would have a entry in a route table (netstat -r/route print) that specifies that 10.x.x.x goes though a vpn tunnel device/interface. On non split tunnel vpn you would see that your default route would be different.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[danomac]

Get Shaw, they don't throttle. I'm a Shaw customer and I've had great luck with them.

I think that depends where you are. On the west coast, Shaw throttles. That's why I moved from Shaw to Telus. I cut my speed in half in the process, but at least I can use it all when I need it...

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Dan541]

The whole point of broadband is to get fast downloads maybe you should consider switching to a decent provider, slow p2p would drive me nuts.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Dan541]

Bandwidth that the customer paid for!!!!

~Dan

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Dan541]

Its wipeing out there competition.

Arnt there any fair tradeing acts againsed that in the United States?

~Dan

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are you routing that ssh tunnel to? What kind of hosting?

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[offline]

Sadly, that's categorically incorrect. As a western-Canadian Shaw customer I can confidently assert that despite my connection's maximum speed of 1Mb/sec (tested using speed tests and some fast external servers) bittorrent, even on well-seeded (>2000 seeds) torrents _never_ exceeds 300k/sec. I can and do have dozens of torrents running, and no matter how many individual ones there are they don't top 300k/sec between them.

A less anecdotal bit of supporting evidence is that, after an odyssey with technical support that got me as far as someone claiming to be one of Shaw's network engineers, Shaw told me themselves that they throttle P2P connectivity.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[electrictroy]

>>>>>Some days on rogers I would get faster downloads on dialup.
>>
>> I totally agree; I'm on Bell where I am and it's awful; ALL of my P2P traffic is capped to 30KiB/s"

How is 30 kibibytes per second equivalent to dialup? 30 kiB/s is 240 kb/s which is a heck of a lot faster than 50 kb/s dialup.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[BForrester]

Try cutting back on your maximum number of connections. There's no rule to this, but I seem to be most successful on the Rogers network with a value in the vicinity of 80-120. (I've heard the case argued for even lower, but this seems to be my local "sweet spot.") I promise never to mention my "sweet spot" again.

If this setting is too high, you're right: it probably sets off the warning bells. I'm sure that there are a many ill-informed users that think allowing connections to 1000 other systems could only possibly speed up their transfers.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Guspaz]

Well, my $30/mth DSL account comes with 200GB, and it can be such a chore keeping under that limit ;)

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[AikonMGB]

I assumed the OP was using hyperbole to make his point; most cases of P2P throttling I have heard of are around 30KiB/s or 50KiB/s. I have never heard of a case of P2P throttling where the speeds were crippled so completely and utterly as to reach dialup speeds.

Aikon-

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[networkBoy]

SSH over MIME over HTTP for teh win baby!

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[calebt3]

ALL of my P2P traffic is capped to 30KiB/s Lucky you. With Clearwire, if I start so much as a single torrent, my entire connection (HTTP, FTP, etc) goes to 4-15kb/s for a week after I stop it.

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[Starayo]

I hate you. I hate you with a passion.

I am currently paying (according to current exchange rates) USD$54 a month for a 1.5Mbit service with a 20GB download limit, then it's capped to 64k. I HATE YOU. :(

Re:throttling from bell and rogers

[billcopc]

I've never taken those numbers seriously, largely because:

1. I consider myself a heavy bittorrent user, seeing as I run dedicated servers EXCLUSIVELY for torrents. Even then, bittorrent makes up less than 25% of my total traffic (yes, I measure it).

2. My friends, who are mostly techy folks or at least internet-savvy, do very little with bittorrent. Little enough that the ISP's 60gb monthly cap is not even a remote concern. Comparatively, they spend all day long on Youtube, Facebook and IRC or Limewire.

3. The only people who can accurately report bittorrent usage, are the very people who benefit from misreporting the stats. ISPs are quick to label bittorrent as illegal downloading in order to demonize the practice, if only to defend their throttling practices and protect their oversold, underperforming networks.

4. How does one identify encrypted bittorrent traffic ? Did they just inflate the numbers by some arbitrary amount to account for stealth traffic ?

I've been on the net for over 15 years, and I haven't seen any significant speed or capacity increases in the last 10 - only price hikes every year or two, for a service that is steadily degrading thanks to traffic shaping/filtering and overcrowding. Bittorrent is one of the prime targets for traffic shaping with most North American ISPs, so I really can't see how it can make up such a huge proportion of the total traffic, not unless there's a bunch of Swedish kids on redundant 100mb lines streaming /dev/urandom to each other 24/7.

No Offense

[AikonMGB]

But I'm not sure I would have watched this on T.V. (if I had one), let alone downloaded it (legally or otherwise) =/

Aikon-

Re:No Offense

[Brian Gordon]

But come on, this is so cool, suddenoutbreakofcommonsense, etc etc. Is it just me or is canada suddenly awesome? Eh?

Re:No Offense

[trolltalk.com]

What it means is that the **AA, seeing the writing on the wall, is going to BLAME CANADA!

This time it will be Bush who accidently says into a live microphopne "We start bombing in 15 minutes."

He'll tell the voters "We're liberating all our oil from their commie socialist rule."

Plus, now that Canadian Tire money is worth more than the US Dollar ... what has he got to lose?

Re:No Offense

[Drooling Iguana]

We've been awesome for nearly a century and a half. People just didn't start noticing until now.

Re:No Offense

[B3ryllium]

Ditto, but I might consider downloading it to do some seeding ... and also, if I'm *really* bored one day after the playoffs, I might watch it. :)

Re:No Offense

[Rog7]

I had the exact same thought, they could have picked a better show to support this way.

Even if it turned out cool, they'll rerun it to death ala This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Re:No Offense

[pilgrim23]

one point on this. there is a Canadian TV show I really like. I cannot get it here in the States. Even their web page has a "This show cannot be viewed in your country" error when you attempt to load clips. Does this mean that soon the actually good programming in Canada will be legally viewable here? I sometimes see TV from S Africa, Argentina, Singapore and India. it pains me to think I may need to use not legal means to be informed about these countries and about Canada....

Re:No Offense

[David_W]

We've been awesome for nearly a century and a half.

Says the drooling iguana? ;)

Re:No Offense

[HungSoLow]

Canada has a terrific history of human rights reform, health care reform and engineering excellence. The problem with Canada (I am one, eh?) is selling out to American politics and businesses. To name a few:

- Canada should be charging the US with a slew of war-crime related offenses over Khadr.

- We should bitch-slap your current administration over Maher Arar, who by the way, is an amazing person who I speak to daily (he's in the research lab next to mine).
- We should be blocking purchases of Canadian companies by some 'US and A' companies that are the true scum of the Earth. (i.e. RADARSAT sold to ATK). Additionally, we sold THE oldest company in the world (HBC) to an American asshole.

Some parts of Canada seem ready to become America Jr. (i.e. Alberta and Toronto) but where I'm from (Ottawa) there's a strong dislike for Americanism and American politics in general. I love Americans, I just hate your politicians and business leaders.

Re:No Offense

[Jaeden]

In Canada, we often have the same problem when trying to view online content from American networks.

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that is the point; there isn't anyone wanting to steal it/pirate it/copyright violate it, so they feel that they can just give it away free. After all, who would want to watch it anyway???

Re:No Offense

[maxume]

Oh, we noticed, it's just that we don't think women with mullets are "awesome". Neither are moose.

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit.

Re:No Offense

[corychristison]

WTF is a mullet?

I am Canadian. Honestly, I've never actually witnessed one in person.

Re:No Offense

[maxume]

It's a haircut. You might call it "hockey hair".

Re:No Offense

[kramulous]

Come over and visit Australia. Can put you up in chook shed. You can bear witness to the mullet of yesteryear, the modern mullet, aged mullets and mullets from space. We got all types.

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is a mullet? I am Canadian. Honestly, I've never actually witnessed one in person.

So you've never been to Alberta, then. The 'men' there have back-hair mullets and the 'women' have armpit-hair mullets. According to the guide-books, that's how you can tell them apart. And as a bonus it scares the bears off.

Re:No Offense

[Guspaz]

Good essay? Maybe if you know nothing about Canada. I randomly skipped to the "The Two Economies" and couldn't help but breaking out laughing due to the hilarious amounts of bullshit and ignorance.

Random gem: "For example, if you own a store in Montreal, the French language signs inside the store are required by law to be at least twice the size of the English signs."

Nice exaggeration. The law requires French to be "more prominent", which may be as simple as italicizing the French text. Making up crap like "at least twice the size" doesn't help the author's shattered credibility.

This is obviously a pro-American opinion piece with no actual research. He rants about how doomed Canada's economy is while the US economy is busy going into a recession. Ours is doing quite well despite the negative impact the crappy US economy has on Canada due to the heavy reliance on exports.

Re:No Offense

[SpiderClan]

I suspect that for now this will only apply to CBC programs, since they are government funded and are trying to fulfill their mandate to make their programming accessible to everyone as easily as possible.

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

Bigots live, even in Canada, and especially around Ottawa. Please don't take what this guy has to say seriously. His ignorance of history is astounding and no amount of bleating about liking Americans (but hating the government) will change the deep-rooted feelings of hatred for Americans (or Torontonians or Albertans) his Outaouais ilk have fostered for centuries.

Drive there with US plates on your car some day. See how long it takes before some valley hillbilly gives you the finger or tries to run you off the road.

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the Appalachian mountains in South Eastern US, unfortunately I have witnessed many

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked for four different TV networks in Canada. The problem is mostly concerning artists unions. Recently (in light of the events in L.A.), they came to an agreement (it's 3% or 4% more on pay for each artist, and it allows webcasting). But the contracts were always built for a specific territory (just like the station I work at right now has the rights to show 24, but only in Québec, not outside).

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

That article is pure bullshit, sorry. While there are waitlists for elective surgeries, and there is definitely room for improvement in the system as a whole, American news sources tend to brutally exaggerate our system's drawbacks. Meanwhile, the US spends far more as a percentage of GDP on its "health care" system...and tens of millions of Americans have no health care at all. What a joke.

Re:No Offense

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or is canada suddenly awesome? Eh? The truly funny part is that us Canadians know you're not one of us. "Eh" is not used standalone in its own sentence, except as a drop-in replacement for "What's that?". In all other cases, "eh" is to be appended to the end of an existing sentence, after a comma.

I bet you understand now, eh?
Eh? You say you don't understand? Your tuque must be cutting off circulation to your brain!

(My captcha word is "wholes"... I'm typing "whoules", but it is not being accepted. This is discrimination!)

Re:No Offense

[mrbcs]

Canada has always been awesome!

Re:No Offense

[Jerry Rivers]

While it is true that my very ill mother died while waiting for a heart operation, that really is the exception and not the rule. It can happen in the US too, especially if you can't afford a decent health care plan.

Please be careful about believing everything you read -- more often than not there is either misinformation or a hidden agenda coloring the conclusions, and that pretty much goes for everything written about Canada from US sources.

With respect to Canada's system (and how it is paid for varies from province to province by the way, it's a national mandate but it's not run federally), it definitely is not perfect and Michael Moore only has it partly right, but it is if anything, more or less fair.

Re:No Offense

[corychristison]

I'm in Saskatchewan. Medicine Hat, Calgary, Edmonton, etc. are places I visit often. :-S

Re:No Offense

[Aussie Osbourne]

Are there any good VPN services based in Canada? I'm sure there are but perhaps not free ones (with sufficient bandwidth).

legally viewable here? IANAL but if a show is not available by traditional means (TV) then I personally think that is "fair use".
Unfortunately what I "think" means SFA to a lawyer/judge.

Re:No Offense

[bulliver]

WTF is a mullet?

Three words man: Billy. Ray. Cyrus.
Also, if you are in western Canada you should know another famous mullet: Ryan Smyth, back when he played for Edmonton.

Finally, someone gets it.

[Jax Omen]

The best way to make money in the long term is to have happy customers. Period. Now if only some US companies would learn that...

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Nos.]

That's a gross over simplification. Best way to make me happy is to give me the product/service for free, without any ads. That kills most revenue streams, so how do you make money if you have no revenue streams? Happy customers are better than unhappy ones, but that's not the only factor to consider.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to make money in the long term is to have happy customers. Period. Now if only some US companies would learn that... Why is that important to a public company today? A privately owned company has tons of reasons to do that but a public company has few. Stockholders will sell their stock in a heartbeat and they would be more than pleased with the destruction of a company if they made a profit (like buyouts). High level managers and executives have little need to be loyal since they can easily jump ship at any time and even if they run the company into the ground their golden parachutes will ensure a soft landing. The only people who have a strong interest in the operation of a public corporation are the low level employees who hope to have job security and perhaps someday collect a pension. A public corporation only has to *appear* to have a long-term strategy in order to not scare of shareholders. Incidents like the Enron or Worldcom collapses aren't caused by especially evil executives who are extremely abnormal. They are caused by people who realize that executives who make major short-term gains while the company appears to be able to survive for the long-term are much more likely to be retained than executives who make minor profits while actually making the company able to survive in the long term.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[kaufmanmoore]

I'm not sure how this would exactly correlate to the US, unless the videos were to include commercials or some other form of revenue. This story says that the program in on the CBC, which is Canada's version of PBS, so they don't have the same commercial interests. Its naive to think that US broadcasters would give away content no matter how "happy" it would make you feel.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Brian Gordon]

But hordes of furious consumers rallying the entire internet against all DRM is a significant factor to consider.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[LunaticTippy]

There are a lot of ways to make it work. A successful show could pay for itself with product placement, and this doesn't have to be offensive. Alternatively, a 5 second ad at the beginning of the show might be sufficient. We are talking about a global audience, nearly zero distribution cost. You'd make a profit on less than a penny a viewer.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Jax Omen]

I didn't say the best way to make the customers happy. I said the best way to make money is through happy customers. almost all customers will be happy if they are provided with good service, good products, and fair prices.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Rog7]

No, it IS really simple, you're making it more complicated. "Happy" as opposed to "unhappy". Most folks don't need things handed to them for free to be happy, they'll happily pay for something worthwhile.

DRM != worthwhile. If I'm restricted with my usage of something I've paid for, I'm unhappy with it. Period.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Nos.]

No, but if you focus purely on making the customer happy (which you can do by giving them the product for free), you won't necessarily make money in the long term, which is what the original comment implied (if not said outright).

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Creepy Crawler]

Happiness for getting schwag is one thing.

Happiness is also getting superior customer service with being treated like a customer (as opposed to thief).

If it comes down for me to make a decision about getting some media and I can either pay for crippled set or download high quality free set, which do you think I'll get?

If you treat me like a thief, I'm'a gonna do it.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Creepy Crawler]

Hmm. Variable content length (5-20 minutes) and a 5-15 second ad that ties into said discussion.

Easy to watch, and a pain in the ass to remove. The AD companies get their stream of revenue, and we get our content. Win-win.. it seems.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like shows are already doing plenty of product placement.

For example, I just finished watching 6 seasons of 24 (ugh. really, I should have stopped after the first season).

All the product placement and advertising was funny at first (Apple, Cisco and Fox news being the top contenders) - all the makings of a good drinking game.
But like most drinking games, it got a bit out of hand... all those 'important people' watching Fox News on their cellphones whenever they had a second of free time.

(of course, I don't have any better 'business model' ideas)

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[kent_eh]

CBC is Canada's public broadcaster, but it isn't the same as PBS. For one thing, they do run commercials in programming the same way the other commercial broadcasters do.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[iminplaya]

Now if only some US companies would learn that...

What is there to motivate them? All they have to do is tank the economy and the government bailouts flow freely... and then, it's off to Granada.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[ShieldW0lf]

I would think that the reason that you'd go about creating something is because you have something important to say, and that you'd be rewarded if people took the time to listen.

If what you have to say is so unimportant that it means nothing to you if people hear it, and the only motive you have is to sell someone elses message, well, maybe you should find something better to do. Because what you're doing now clearly isn't important enough to waste your time on.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Now if only some US companies would learn that...

Or... if someone would use this insight, start a company, and turn this superior wisdom
into a direct competitive advantage, maybe that someone could *teach* them the lesson.

Vague complaining and wishing that someone would do something... accomplishes nothing.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[jedidiah]

That would be like some indie movie production house trying to suddenly threaten the MPAA cartel...

Or some indie record label suddenly trying to threaten the RIAA cartel...

Or some local indepentent TV station trying to threaten the broadcast networks or cable conglomerates...

Or some local radio station trying to threaten Clearchannel...

Empty libertarian rhetoric sounds nice until you actually frame it in terms
of reality. It's kind of like a comic book versus real combat or crimefighting.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

CBC, which is Canada's version of PBS Not really. It's more like Canada's version of BBC. In fact CBC and BBC share a lot of programming with each other (torchwood and dr who being the ones I care about).

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Jerry Rivers]

CBC is older than PBS by some 35 years. If anything PBS is America's answer to CBC, not the other way around.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[bdjacobson]

But hordes of furious consumers rallying the entire internet against all DRM is a significant factor to consider. But I hardly see any hordes anywhere.

Plus, I don't know that I want people who don't know about DRM getting on the same torrents as me. That nice download speed I enjoyed with NIN's Ghosts 1 release? Now throw hundreds of uneducated torrent users on there that remove the torrent as soon as they have it downloaded, and never seed to 1.5 ratio, and I'll show you a slow torrent.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Jherek Carnelian]

Best way to make me happy is to give me the product/service for free, without any ads. What good is free, if the product is not what you want?

I say the best way to make me happy is to give me what I want. The trick is to make it easy for me to pay for and get what I want. In other words, let me pay up front for shows with storylines/actors/directors/etc that I want. Kind of like the ultimate ala-carte for cable tv - instead of subscribing to a channel, subscribe to a show.

As long as subscription revenues for the show are sufficient, new episodes get created. The episodes are then released for free distribution because they have already been paid for. If the subscription revenues fall, then the show gets cancelled.

No need for middle-men who don't care a whit about the quality or direction of the show determining what shows get funded and what shows get canned. Let the real audience decide.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Jardine]

CBC is Canada's public broadcaster, but it isn't the same as PBS. For one thing, they do run commercials in programming the same way the other commercial broadcasters do.

So...kinda like PBS. The Petroleum Broadcasting System. Though CBC doesn't try to hide their advertisements like PBS does. I think the kids programming block of shows they have in the morning is commercial-free as well.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Jedi Alec]

No, it IS really simple, you're making it more complicated. "Happy" as opposed to "unhappy". Most folks don't need things handed to them for free to be happy, they'll happily pay for something worthwhile.

Heck, we'll pay a lot more for it if it's really good, and wear the bloody pricetag as a badge of honor. And no, I don't own a Mac :-)

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Tolkien]

Finally someone is correct. Mod parent up. :)

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[generica1]

CBC isn't Canada's PBS. CBC is Canada's BBC. Huuuuuge difference.

This is a good thing, and more significant than if PBS was doing it.

This is the federal government funding the seeding of torrent files. That lends a lot of legitimacy to a P2P protocol that certain stakeholders (both domestic and international) would love to stamp out completely.

Re:Finally, someone gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

CBC Radio does not have commercials. This includes CBC 1, 2, 3, and Serius.

However, CBC TV, the website and a little snippet before podcasts do have adverts.

Now if only

[imamac]

companies in the US would catch on. DRM is a dead horse. And it's been beaten to a pulp.

Add more shows!

[Filter]

22 Minutes and jPod would be excellent!

Re:Add more shows!

[jmcnaught]

I'm not all that interested in this particular show, but I'll probably download and seed it in hopes that CBC (and others) will do more of this.

CBC is owned by the Canadian people. I think all the stuff they produce on their own should be under a Creative Commons license so regular folk like me can use some of their footage too.

Re:Add more shows!

[FPCat]

Sadly, jPod has already been canceled.

Re:Add more shows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because jPod is the only CBC show being torrented around the world at all.

This is why we can't have nice things.

"Life ain't nothing but bitches and money." - Kam Fong

Re:Add more shows!

[DerWulf]

Bastards! Again with the friday night pid of death that also killed Firefly. What-the-fuck!? Why is it that any show I enjoy seems to be a prime canditate for cancelation?

Re:Add more shows!

[Propaganda13]

It sucks that jPod is cancelled.

AFAIK, The Border is being torrented around the world and The Guard had some episodes torrented.

Re:Add more shows!

[tpz]

It sucks: That is why jPod is cancelled.

There, fixed that for ya.

I had some hopes for jPod, but after struggling through watching a few episodes I can easily see why CBC would have struggled to keep it running.

Re:Add more shows!

[Jardine]

Bastards! Again with the friday night pid of death that also killed Firefly. What-the-fuck!? Why is it that any show I enjoy seems to be a prime canditate for cancelation?

Firefly's timeslot didn't kill it, Fox did. Just like they kill every other promising show.

Re:Add more shows!

[yani]

There is a petition to save the show here, if you like it sign!

http://savejpod.ca/petition/

Sadly I just started watching it, I have to say the name turned me off initially, but having watched a few episodes the characters are amazing and I love the humour.

Re:Add more shows!

[Tolkien]

I really liked jPod. I can't believe *Slashdot* is where I first hear it got cancelled. Blah.

That's nice, but wake me up when...

[Anonymous Coward]

... both channels do this, eh?

Oh Canada....

[molex333]

From healthcare to Hockey, why do the Canadiens constantly get things right where we can not. As an example, anyone who has ever gone to Niagra falls can tell you that the Canadiens are better than us at almost everything. The New York side of the falls is horriblly dirty and devoid of any decent food or lodgings, while the Canadian side is clean, has a vast number of resteraunts(including a Hard Rock cafe), and even has gambling. All this and you could eat off the streets! Why is this, does anyone even know?

Re:Oh Canada....

[vertinox]

Why is this, does anyone even know?

Lack of Americans.

Re:Oh Canada....

[rikkards]

Although the GP was marked as Flamebait, I do know that some of the allure for some people of going to Cuba is just that. Mind you it isn't hard for Americans to go there, they just need to fly out of another country's airport i.e. Montreal.

Re:Oh Canada....

[vertinox]

Although the GP was marked as Flamebait

Technically it was a joke as I being an American would be the one most likley candidate to be offended by what I just said. ;)

Its like saying that the reason the Canadian Government isn't as bad as the American Government is that the Canadian doesn't have American Politicians in it. Apparently someone took offense and none taking about that Cuba issue. Shame we Americans can't visit.

Re:Oh Canada....

[rikkards]

Yeah our politicians aren't exactly impeccable either. Haven't been to Cuba either even though technically I could. Funds don't allow it as we are saving up for a downpayment plus the debrief before and after by work would be annoying.

Re:Oh Canada....

[White Flame]

Since when is Canadian health care done right?

Re:Oh Canada....

[urcreepyneighbor]

including a Hard Rock cafe I prefer Hooters. But, hey, I am an American. ;-)

Re:Oh Canada....

[theheadlessrabbit]

why do the Canadiens constantly get things right where we can not. As an example, anyone who has ever gone to Niagra falls can tell you that the Canadiens are better than us at almost everything my personal favorite...

Americans have the right to bear arms.
Canadian women have the right to bear breasts.

I believe the reason for us getting everything right while the US gets everything wrong, is that section 15 of the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms only extends rights to 'actual persons', not 'legal persons' like the US system (corporations are classified as 'legal persons') so we don't have the same problem of having to constantly welcome our evil corporate overlords.

Re:Oh Canada....

[BlueStraggler]

Canadian women have the right to bear breasts.

In our defense, it gets pretty cold in the winter, and sometimes we don't shave.

Re:Oh Canada....

[g0at]

Americans have the right to bear arms.
Canadian women have the right to bear breasts. Unless mandatory breast removal became rule of law in the States, I don't think there's any difference on the latter point. :P

Re:Oh Canada....

[theheadlessrabbit]

so American women also have the right to walk around topless anywhere in public?
I thought that was limited to Ontario, Canada.

Re:Oh Canada....

[g0at]

so American women also have the right to walk around topless anywhere in public?

I don't know; probably not. But what I re-quoted from the original poster was that American women enjoy the right to have breasts. That's what "bear" means. You (and the OP) are probably thinking of the word "bare".

That's why I thought it was funny, and made a joke, which you didn't get. :/

Re:Oh Canada....

[druxton]

Whoooosssshhhh.

Maybe you meant "bare" breasts?

CBC - It's Publicly funded

[usedtolosing]

Keep in mind folks.

The good 'ole CBC is a publicly funded crown corp. So yeah, if they want to cut out a revenue stream...go for it...but we're paying for it in taxes.

It's a novel experiment, and I love the idea. But I'm not sure that this exact model would work for a Private US broadcaster or private Canadian Broadcaster.

Keep in mind. PBS has had documentary downloads available forever. PBS Frontline.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[boris111]

Frontline... true, but I wanted to see Ken Burn's "The War". Guess they wanted to keep the DVD sales. Wonder if public money went into that program.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[supersat]

Of course, PBS also sets the broadcast flag on their digital transmissions.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[boris111]

I'll answer my own question from the website:

Corporate funding is provided by General Motors, Anheuser-Busch, and Bank of America. Major funding is provided by Lilly Endowment, Inc.; Public Broadcasting Service; National Endowment for the Humanities; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; The Pew Charitable Trusts; The Longaberger Foundation; and Park Foundation, Inc.

Now I wonder if the corporate sponsors received a tax deduction. Wonder if they get a return on the DVD sales.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[Anonymous Coward]

I just see that as a good argument in favour of publicly funded institutions.

Because they are not as driven by profitability, they're free to try experiments like this that would be difficult/impossible for private companies to get off the ground.
Then, maybe, the CTVs, NBCs and ABCs, can look at the results and see if there is a way to adapt the model to keep on making fat sacks of cash.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[Sandbags]

For publically broadcast media, I don't see why this isn't the best idea since sliced bread! the broadcast was already free. They got advertising revenue when it aired.

By distributing it through torrents, they get:
- no need to manually encode, produce, and deal with formats of the media. It gets released without DRM and nuts everywhere will recode it for them into a dozen formats.
- No real distribution costs, why buy a big pipe when we can use theirs! Push it out to a few hundred people, and millions of copies go out on the net without costing CBC a dime!
- Instant advertising figures. Pull up BT, type in the name of the episode, get 47,000 responses, now the advertiser is certain there's 47,000 copies of their ad distributed and they pay up for the added advertising. Bonus revenue for CBC! This also helps get quick and dirty popularity numbers wihtout paying 3rd parties to survey viewers.
- It helps push net neutrality in Canada, something the broadcast networks need in order to make IPTV both cheap and reliable. Without net neutrality, broadcasters could pay high fees to have networks provide them IPTV priority bandwidth (or hold their signal hostage by degrading it's priority unless a fee is paid).
- Instant fan base FAR beyond their broadcast area, without signing contracts with distributors, without deals with sattelite providers and cable companies, and without putting up new towers, all which extends revenue from advertising.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[Anonymous Coward]

The good 'ole CBC is a publicly funded crown corp. So yeah, if they want to cut out a revenue stream...go for it...but we're paying for it in taxes.

Insightfull is well deserved.

What is CBC draw on Ottawa these days. $2.5B/year ? Just over 15M workers? Hm, this works out to about $160 for each taxpayer. I don't include those not paying taxes. $160 isn't free.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[Mantle]

What is with you and all the FUD?

Is it cutting out a revenue stream? Or increasing the size of the pie? How do you know they aren't embedding commercials in the bt version and making MORE money by telling advertisers they are reaching MORE eyes? Show me.

Even if we accept that they will make less money with this distribution method, is it going to be significant to overshadow the savings to the CBC by using bt as a distribution channel? About 1/3 of CBC's funding comes from non-taxpayer sources, according to their 2005-2006 annual report. Of that 1/3, only a fraction of it is from advertising. Of that fraction, only a smaller portion yet comes from TV advertising. Is that a significant amount? Show me.

Why are you so ready to draw negative conclusions so early?

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[j-beda]

"What is CBC draw on Ottawa these days. $2.5B/year ?"

It looks like it is about about $1.1 - 1.35 billion per year according to http://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/Entertainment/2008/02/28/4883040-cp.html Still not free, but considering the radio as well as tv coverage, not so bad. 22 minutes alone might be worth it...

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[TheSync]

PBS has had documentary downloads available forever. PBS Frontline.

As PBS produces no content, they are dependent on obtaining streaming rights from the producers in addition to the limited broadcast rights they negotiate for terrestrial broadcast by public television stations. But most public television stations are not enthusiastic about paying PBS more to obtain streaming rights from producers just so those shows can be streamed from PBS.org rather than viewed on the local public television stations (cutting into ratings which hurt future underwriting deals and breaking up the donor/local station relationship).

Thus there are few shows besides Frontline that PBS streams in full-length.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

Maybe I'm a bit ignorant about this, but so far as I know, CBC losing revenue doesn't mean they automatically get more funding. It just means they lose revenue. If I'm not mistaken, changing the amount of money the CBC gets from public sources would require an act of parliament. That's why the CBC has been trying to squeeze out more advertising dollars in recent years.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[invisiblerhino]

I'd like to see if the BBC do the same thing with iPlayer downloads. People kind of expect it, I think they're just scared because it hasn't been done, but CBC and BBC seem to me to have quite a lot in common. Also, there's no reason why private companies can't just distribute programmes with adverts in them - I fail to see how that's different from watching them on TV and recording them.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[Jardine]

The good 'ole CBC is a publicly funded crown corp. So yeah, if they want to cut out a revenue stream...go for it...but we're paying for it in taxes.

Except that pretty much any good show is going to show up on your friendly neighbourhood torrent site anyway. A lot of the shows are available in streaming clips anyway. By putting up a torrent themselves, they can save on bandwidth and provide a show that isn't as limited in video and audio quality.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[usedtolosing]

Again, this model works for a publicly funded State-run media outlet! They have a guaranteed budget, regardless of advertising income. I think it's great that the CBC is torrenting one show (and this is surely a test project) But I wouldn't expect private networks to follow suit (atleast shows that are commercial free).

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[mxs]

The experiment is not novel. The BBC is running circles around them. It is, however, a decent experiment.

Furthermore, I do believe this could work for private broadcasters as well. Right now, you find all the shows out there on P2P without ads with decent seeding without hassle. If they actually came together to figure out how to provide a better user experience (even with ads), they'd win. Of course, boxed-in low-bitrate streams of mediocre quality on their homepage that disappear after a day or a week are not gonna do the trick. Flash-only websites usable only on 1 or 2 browsers and 1 OS are not gonna do the trick. Stuff you can't send to your appleTv are not gonna do the trick. Stuff you can't send to your media center mythtv-box are not gonna do the trick. Then again, they don't have to care yet -- they still get enough money from public broadcasts, apparently.

Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded

[stephen70]

Commercial business unlike CBC dont have a laws/system/infrastructure in place which could declare you bankrupt, strip you of all your assets, fine or even imprision people who dont pay or try to avoid paying their taxs. I would rather pay as i use than be forced to pay for something which i do not watch.

But since they took the money as tax allready they may as well deliver the product to the maximum number of people who payd for it - i like the idea.

But the comment about ignoring Digital rights Management is simply stupid for a commercial media company if your entire catalogue is stolen you make no income and close down. !

Not a good example

[brunes69]

Niagara falls is not a good example becase nature itself is on Canada's side. The reason the Canadian side of the falls has grown into such a tourist attraction is the horseshoe falls, which are the most dramatic portion, is best visible from the Canadian side. You can hardly see anything from the New York side.

So, over time, more and more money went to the Canadian side developing the tourist area. Think about it, if you are a developer spending $100 million on a hotel, you want it to have the best possible view - so you put it on the Canadian side.

Re:Not a good example

[Creepy Crawler]

The view is one thing. New York doesn't even have volunteer "trash pickers" or anything. It's like the ghetto, but in nature, compared to Canada.

Re:Not a good example

[Cidtek]

That doesn't explain away the dirty decrepit look of the NY side of the falls. Canadian cities do not need the Horseshoe Falls to avoid being knee deep in trash.

Re:Not a good example

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Canada didn't even TRY to alter its view of the falls; NY used explosives to create a custom effect on their side .. and the view still sucks. Too bad the point wasn't about the view, the point was about the INFRASTRUCTURE.

Re:Not a good example

[molex333]

While this may in fact be true, as a native New Yorker(and usually proud of it) I am really upset about the fact that we can not even keep the American side clean! It is horrible and dirty. Having been to both sides, the dirtiness takes away from what is still a particullarly beautiful site!

Check you options! You may have other choices...

[Anonymous Coward]

...depending on where you live, like Teksavvy: 50-60% of the price, great non-outsourced tech support, no throttles, no hidden caps, no excess-bandwidth gouging, no b.s. Highest user-rated ISP in North America at dslreports' "Good Bad Ugly" A to A+ vs. C+ to B- for the twin Borgs.

Its a canadian thing...

[Coraon]

Guys, you may think that this is the rare exceptions, but in reality this is the way the wind is blowing in Canada. We have a privacy act in Canada that many legal scollars agree that DRM violates because it requires to much information about the user of the file. The long and short of it is this. In Canada you can buy a lawnmower take it apart and make something out of it, In the US if you did that you violate the DMCA...do you see the problem here?

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[diodeus]

No healthcare bills
No DMCA
No "war on drugs"
No billtiontrillion dollar deficit
No gun-toting citizens ...and in Quebec the minimum drinking age (and rules of the road) are merely suggestions!

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[bdjacobson]

No healthcare bills
No DMCA
No "war on drugs"
No billtiontrillion dollar deficit
No gun-toting citizens ...and in Quebec the minimum drinking age (and rules of the road) are merely suggestions! Ah, but we enjoy things like Newegg.

I ordered from NCIXUS (the US version of NCIX, both operate in Canada) over Christmas, they are a competing computer parts provider.

In the US, when supply lines get overwhelmed we hire more folk for the season and get stuff out on time. Ever had a slow shipment from newegg? If I order one day, 99% of the time it's out in the mail the next. Not so in Canada apparently; minimum wage there is $11 and they can't just grab new hires and lay them off a month and a half later. Some workers rights bills at work here is my guess. Result was it took NCIXUS 6 of their business days when they were open, from the time I clicked "order" and charged it to my card, to the time it was picked up by Fedex.

However, Fedex got it from the far northeast to the Southeast in under 39 hours.

The US gets things right here and there too, you know.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[bdjacobson]

I should mention it was the simple, cheap, Fedex Express Saver, not special 2 day delivery (even though that's what I got).

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[kipin]

It pains me to see you misspell the word "scholars", especially in a post like this.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[jhylkema]

No healthcare bills
No DMCA
No "war on drugs"
No billtiontrillion dollar deficit
No gun-toting citizens ...and in Quebec the minimum drinking age (and rules of the road) are merely suggestions!

I wish I had mod points. These are just a few of the reasons why this American recently decamped from what I've always been told was The Greatest Nation On The Face Of The Earth and took up residence in the True North Strong and Free.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

Not to harsh on your post's buzz (getting stuff from newegg quickly is pretty sweet), but:

1. Unlike in the US, there is no federal minimum wage in Canada. In fact (IANAL, but I think) it would be unconstitutional for Canada to have a minimum wage.
2. There is no province or territory in Canada that has a minimum wage close to $11. The highest minimum wage is in Nunavut ($8.37) where the cost of living is extraordinarily high. The typical minimum wage in Canada is about $8 (or less for what the province might consider inexperienced or student workers).

Also, I can't think of any reason why it would be illegal to hire workers for a month and a half.

Could it just be that newegg is a better company than NCIX, nationality aside?

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

Sorry, Nunavut's minimum wage is $8.50, not $8.37.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[Jardine]

There is no province or territory in Canada that has a minimum wage close to $11. The highest minimum wage is in Nunavut ($8.37) where the cost of living is extraordinarily high. The typical minimum wage in Canada is about $8 (or less for what the province might consider inexperienced or student workers).

Ontario's minimum wage will be $8.75 at the end of this month, $9.50 as of March 31, 2009, and $10.25 as of March 31, 2010. Of course, NCIX is located in British Columbia, where the minimum wage is $8 like you said.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[usedtolosing]

We have healthcare bills. They're called TAXES.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[MKalus]

I suggest you follow Canadian Politics a bit. Harper is doing his best at a George W. Bush impression, though I have to give him at least some Kudos for being a bit more sneaky about it than his idol.

Having said this, the current opposition doesn't really exist either, I wish the Liberals would ship Dion off to somewhere in Northern Quebec where he can talk to some Polar Bears and maybe postur a bit.

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[Zoxed]

> no... no.... no...

Sounds like any country you choose to pick in Europe :-)

Re:Its a canadian thing...

[multipartmixed]

..and furthermore, you can fire without cause for up to 90 days after the initial hire.

So whoever was feeding this guy info is full of shit.

Check your options.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better Canadian ISP's than the Borg and Beavers

Re:Check your options.

[TobyWong]

Thanks for the tip. My memory is a little fuzzy but I think I did initially check them out and they only offered basic 1mb DSL to my location so I went with Rogers even though I hate Rogers. I will definitely have another look at them though.

w00t!

[ForestGrump]

When I visit Canadia this summer, you know what I'll be downloading 24/7!
CBC episodes of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister!!! (and I'll be going down to Future Shop for Trailer Park Boys DVDs).

Grump

Re:w00t!

[Jerry Rivers]

Trailer Park Boys is available on Netflix in the US.

Re:w00t!

[ForestGrump]

Thanks. Didn't know that.

I discovered TPB a couple years ago on the intarweb. Fell in love with it and ended up spending ~250 CDN a couple years ago importing the first couple seasons and puppets who kill. I plan on picking up the movie and later seasons this summer when I go for my cousin's wedding.

Re:w00t!

[jimlintott]

It gets even better. Due to the falling American dollar it is harder for growers to sell pot to American dealers. So Canada is expected to have a glut of extra pot and probably falling prices.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Re:w00t!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just have Bubbles dig out his rig license and drive it down in a fedex truck.

PBS buying shows - Hmph!

[iknownuttin]

Frontline... true, but I wanted to see Ken Burn's "The War". Guess they wanted to keep the DVD sales. Wonder if public money went into that program.

That's one of the things that chaps my ass about PBS. Our local stations have to pay for these shows and some of those folks are making millions on businesses related to the show - Rick Steve's Europe for one. The local station buys the show, he advertises his travel company, which by his own admission on 60 Minutes soes over $20 million in revenues. It's the same with "Sesseme St." Jim Henson's heirs are also making millions off of the merchandising from the show. Ken Burns also.

I think those shows that are pulling in the bucks via side or their primary businesses should at least give their shows to PBS.

I think I'm in love.

[fahrbot-bot]

As for DRM, she (Guinevere Orvis) said 'I think DRM is dead, even if a lot of broadcasters don't realize it'.

I think I'm in love... :-)
To bad Guinevere is taken.

Before we crown this corpse...

[subVorkian]

They use Windows Media Player to stream the radio stations. Their token ogg vorbis stream is unreliable and barely worth the trouble.

They aint no saint.

Re:Check you options! You may have other choices..

[Anonymous Coward]

shh! we don't want them to get too popular too quickly!

Which one?

[camperdave]

there is a Canadian TV show I really like. I cannot get it here in the States.

Would that be Corner Gas?

Re:Which one?

[boardboyda]

Lol probably Little Mosque on the Prairie or Trailer Park Boys

Re:Which one?

[pilgrim23]

Food Jammers

Re:Which one?

[ashitaka]

I was thinking "Little Mosque on the Prairie"

Never heard of "Food Jammers"

Re:Which one?

[pilgrim23]

http://www.foodtv.ca/foodjammers/ think Good Eats meets Mythbusters

Great Canadian TV

[Deliveranc3]

Well Battlestar Galactica obviously
Traders: Drama about Bay St.(Toronto's Wall St.) Stock market
This is Wonderland: Canadian court drama, very Canadian, problematic legal issues.
Kenny vs. Spenny: Some debate over realism, but intense... roomates competing in a variety of competitons... required stoned viewing.
Road to Avonlea: Now megastar Sarah Polley, kind of like Anne of Green Gables... very very solid show. No action.

There's tonnes more but those are probably the best dramas.

I'd love some recommendations.

Re:Great Canadian TV

[hether]

Not dramas, but try Corner Gas and Little Mosque On The Prairie.

Re:Great Canadian TV

[rikkards]

I love Corner Gas and supposedly it is going into Syndication. I don't like Little Mosque on the Prairie although the idea for the show is brilliant, I find the writing is your typical "CBC"ish writing that was good in the 70's but now is too... safe. It's hard to explain but anyone who has watched CBC material should be able to understand.

  Mind you this is from watching the first couple of episodes. Not sure if it has changed since the first season.

Re:Great Canadian TV

[ashitaka]

Little Mosque got much better and had a couple of episodes, especially around the holidays that really allowed the actors to expand their characters. The Bollywood dance sequence where Amaar had to work around his parent's attempts at arranged marriage was classic.

There's still a ton of issues they could attack and they have yet to show a really positive, understanding non-Muslim Caucasian character but there's hope.

Re:Great Canadian TV

[rikkards]

That was one of the things I didn't like about it. Pretty much every white person I saw was pretty much shown in a bad light (except the priest) but that could be how you might feel as a muslim in a post-911 world.

Another show that shows the other side but does a good job is Big Love (which I do love) shows the opposite that not all polygamists are kooky commune dwelling old men preying on young girls. That show I downloaded through bittorrent as we don't get HBO. It had been recommended by an American I know. CTV I think is now showing it here but I have already finished the first 2 seasons.

Re:Check you options! You may have other choices..

[kent_eh]

Good option if you live in one of the 4 provinces where they have DSL.
Not so good in the other 6 provinces where they only offer dial-up.
Here in Manitoba there is only 1 DSL provider (MTS) and one cable provider.

CBC Mandate via Broadcasting Act

[Anonymous Coward]

"The CBC's mandate, as provided in the Broadcasting Act (http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/about/mandate.shtml), requires it to make its programming 'available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means.'"

They're not awesome until...

[themushroom]

...they put their good older programs, like 4 On The Floor, out on DVD or make available as a Torrent. The Frantics have been trying to get that out of the CBC's cold dead hands for ages to no avail, and the fans want it.

What I'm saying is, one current program does not a "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense" make.

If it means...

[Anonymous Coward]

more ReGenesis coming, then im all for it.

Re:Check you options! You may have other choices..

[Guspaz]

MTS is obligated, like every other telco, to offer wholesale access to their lines. There are many other DSL wholesalers who will sell you service in MTS territory, just like there are in Bell or Telus territory. A quick google turned up dozens.

As for TekSavvy, they're expanding to Bell Aliant territory soon (the maritime provinces), and I'd expect that MTS and SaskTel can't be far behind. They're already well on their way to becoming a national ISP.

Change ISPs--you still have a choice

[WebCowboy]

I'm on Bell where I am and it's awful;

Bell/Sympatico internet access is awful almost everywhere. I have seen two reviews and Bell was the bottom-of-the-barrel both times (the Marketplace story was pretty entertaining if lacking in technical details).

If you can go with Shaw or Telus or Rogers you are going to be far better off. Even better than that, there are still a few independents out there that offer superior service and won't throttle your connection so badly (if at all). For example, even though it has to run over some of Telus' gear Radiant Communications offers DSL service that is superior to that Telus themselves provides.

I'm not a huge fan of most of the CBC's programming, but it is encouraging to see them act like a proper public broadcaster once in awhile, while at the same time doing something innovative in it market. Being that Bell has had its ties with the CTV network and Shaw has interests in many television network and production properties (through its association with Corus entertainment) I'd have thought they'd be more keen to expand programming on the internet. I guess, however, that would mean people wouldn't have to subscribe to their delivery services to view their content...an you know it's all about "vertical markets".

All is not quite so open from CBC

[Determinator]

I recently had a relative die and CBC did an article on the funeral. I asked CBC to allow me to post a copy on Youtube as they only keep their non-DRM video news archives up for 24 hours. This is there reply: _____________________ Dear YYYYYYYYYY I work for CBC TV Archive Sales and your request was brought to my attention. Thank you for writing, and sorry to hear about your loss. Unfortunately we have a policy of restricting 3rd party website from hosting CBC material. CBC material is available on many website, it is not something we have authorized, however, it's not something we actively police. Warm Regards XXXXXXXXX Media Librarian, Archive Sales Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Re:All is not quite so open from CBC

[piltdownman84]

Whats the problem here? I take that to mean "Unofficially Go Ahead". They told you that its not something they police. Sounds pretty understanding to me. They could have easily just written you back saying no, and if you do they will take legal action against you.

Re:All is not quite so open from CBC

[urcreepyneighbor]

"Unofficially Go Ahead" Translation

Original: "it's not something we actively police"
Engrish: Go ahead, but don't be a twat about it.

Re:Check you options! You may have other choices..

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent up, I'm another very happy TekSavvy user.

Next Great Prime Minister ?

[georgeav]

"Canada's public broadcast network, CBC, is to adopt DRM free BitTorrent distribution of one of its major primetime shows, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. What's this ? The Canadian version of American Idol ?

Re:Next Great Prime Minister ?

[Retardical_Sam]

I believe that would be Canadian Idol, a fairly popular Canadian TV show.

Re:Next Great Prime Minister ?

[mevets]

| What's this ? The Canadian version of American Idol ?

with much trashier judges....

Re:Next Great Prime Minister ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geezuz man, do you have to be so freakin' ignorant in public?

Typical CBC. Playing good, while being very bad.

[TihSon]

I think it's great that they are helping to bury the DRM corpse, but let's not forget this is the CBC. They are Canada's largest social engineering firm, and the only reason they are doing this is to make sure they have as large a platform as possible to pontificate against their longtime enemy, the Conservatives. They want the attention of young voters in Toronto, and the young voters in Toronto will eat up this torrent. The fact the content will be more CBC slash and burn will simply be an added bonus to most of them.

Enjoy the show though, I am sure it will be nothing if not entertaining.

Don't get your hopes up.

[jmenon]

"one of its major primetime shows, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister."

Not exactly.

This isn't as big a deal as it sounds. Canada's Next Great Prime Minister isn't even a series: it is a single-episode special with an audience of mainly university students that covers a contest for aspiring young leaders which used You Tube videos as its main vehicle.

So let's not over-hype this as proof why Canada is heaven and the United States is hell.

Re:Don't get your hopes up.

[leventhal]

I'm just hoping that they set up officially sanctioned torrents for jPod.

*NOT* the first (at CBC or North America) !!

[ivar]

I was a software developer on the CBC programme ZeD, and we torrented (and streamed and broadcast) our " New new media" episode almost 3 years ago (April 1st, 2005 to be exact). And while the torrent file still exists, sadly the torrent server is no longer running. I believe we used Xvid as the codec too (or was it divx?), but I am certain there was no DRM on the file. Anyway, ZeD was web 2.0 in 2002 !

NCIX is not an online-only store.

[Rog7]

I live in Vancouver and I can walk down the street and get a much better PC at cheaper prices than Newegg or NCIX, so their ability to ship doesn't concern me much. NCIX themselves have two stores within reasonable distance from me and they get tons of walk-in traffic during the holidays. I don't think Newegg even has brick and mortar stores, so I don't think you're comparing apples and oranges.

Re:NCIX is not an online-only store.

[Anonymous Coward]

From personal experience, I have found plenty of deals on new egg that don't compare to anything I can find in Canada. And it seems that Canadian vendors don't get the latest hard drives at the same time as the US. New egg was selling a 250GB external 2.5" HDD, and I couldn't find one anywhere in Canada. I eventually bought one at a Best Buy just across the border when it was on sale... and it was cheaper than buying a 160GB external 2.5" HDD (from the same manufacturer) in Canada.

Re:Typical CBC. Playing good, while being very bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, troll somewhere else. Boo-hoo, the world does'nt agree with Steven Harper. How dare they!

Social engineering firm? Grow up and pull your head out of your ass.

CBC supports WM on all platforms...

[Kimos]

They use Windows Media Player to stream the radio stations. Their token ogg vorbis stream is unreliable and barely worth the trouble.
They aint no saint. They use WM, but there's a method to their madness. From their site "Why the CBC uses Windows Media Player":

In August 2004, CBC.ca moved to one standard media player for live streaming - Windows Media Player. Windows Media player is currently the most commonly used format in the marketplace and using this format allows CBC.ca to deliver live radio streaming to the widest possible audience. Further, by supporting only one commonly used media player (Windows Media), we can direct more technical support and resources behind this standard format and use the efficiencies to offer more radio streams to more Canadians, both at home and abroad.

If you go here, they detail how to view/listen to their content on OS X/Linux/UNIX machines. They not only explain how to get access, but they clearly test and keep their documentation up to date.

I love the CBC.

Taxes

[parallel_jay]

Considering our taxes pay for all the content on the CBC I say it's about bloody time they did something like this. Maybe next they'll abolish commercials like the BBC.

Re:Typical CBC. Playing good, while being very bad

[TihSon]

Troll, eh? Which one of us is hiding?

...and who said anything about Steven? It's almost as if your response has been engineered for you to consume and then repeat, like they had a programmed script ready for you to use against their foe.

The dark side feels good, doesn't it. Feel the power of your anger. Let it flow through you and make you stronger...

The coming train wreck...

[Nuitari The Wiz]

The torrents have been made available today and they are conveniently hosted by Mininova. Now _that_ is going to get a lot of attention on CBC soon enough :)