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Canadian Groups Call For Massive Net Regulation
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist is reporting that Canadian cultural groups including ACTRA and SOCAN have called on Canada's telecom regulator to implement a massive new Internet regulation framework. This includes a new three-percent tax on ISPs to pay for new media creation, Canadian content requirements for commercial websites, and licensing requirements for new media broadcasters, including for user-generated content."
I wonder how Canadians would react if the other industries that get pirated off of the internet started getting a cut, too. Start snapping up 2% to movies, 3% to games, some money for tv and radio, et cetera. Then maybe pornography could get a free slice, then the books and magazine articles who are getting wholesale copied, et cetera. Suddenly people might start saying "hey, I've never pirated one of those, I don't even play games" or whatever. It's not like music is significantly more pirated than other things are.
I honestly don't understand why the music industry gets to tax Canadians as a whole for the behavior of a few. Why do media sources get different treatment than the other industries? Shouldn't canadians be paying a Photoshop tax at this point?
StoneCypher is Full of BS
First, ACTRA and SOCAN are not the government, they are special interest groups. Secondly, given the current political situation in Canada... don't expect this to go anywhere in the near future.
I live in Canada and we have a simular thing with radio. They have to play X amount of hours of Canadian content, which is good because it gives the local artists some play(usually unless they blast Celine Dion *winmper*). But to do this for Candadian websites seems just weird. How is this going to benifit Canadians to have X amount of Canadian content on the sites. I don't see why it needs to be regulated any further than not allow children from seeing explicit material(excess violence and sexuality), which probably doesn't stop most children anyways(didn't when I was 16), but I can see it's usefullness.
Regulation of the internet in any way takes away apart of what the internet is. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and rarly do you have to listen to someone bluber an idiotic viewpoint. Regulating the internet goes against what it has come to represent raw informtion. Not always accurat not always sensable but I wouldn't change it for anything.
If people are afraid of the internet so much that they want to change it, I would like to ask them why? Why do they need to confine Canadian websites to having a certain amount Canadian content when it's a global community. The content shouldn't be limited because of the location the domain is in. Places like CBC.ca TSN.ca and CTV.ca are always going to have the canadian content I want. news.google.ca maps.google.ca all have local content for me if I need them. People do a good job of keeping canadian content and other out there for everyone because it's in their best interest.
This group is silly and I would like to know if there is somewhere I could send a letter telling them as much.
Actra is a performers union and socan is basically an artists union. Socan actually got a law passed that taxes blank media that supposedly gives money to the artists that lose money from IP theft. So don't underestimate these bozos. The key is that the internet allows us to do an end run around the stupid laws that keep forcing crap content onto Canadian TV and radio. What the hell would be Canadian content on the Internet? The whole idea of these stupid can con laws was to put Canadian artists on a "level" playing field with the US. But with the Internet a level playing field would basically be a combination of bandwidth and a lack of stupid laws. So if they create a bunch of stupid laws then Canadian web sites would be disadvantaged not helped. The only winners would be these organizations that collect these fees. I wonder how much of the present money collected from the media tax goes to artists when calculated as a simple percentage of monies collected and not a number generated by some convoluted accounting. If you are Canadian, write your MP and tell them that this will hurt Canadian IT badly.