Slashdot Mirror
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."
Blame Canada
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
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
For those who aren't familiar with the groups referenced in TFA:
ACTRA: http://www.actra.ca/actra/control/insideActra_what
SOCAN: http://www.socan.ca/jsp/en/about/what_we_do.jsp
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
ACTRA and SOCAN are Canada's recording industry associations. They parallel the US's MPAA and RIAA.
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.
The government is not saying this. This is SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) and ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) proposing this.
It's analogous to the wailing the RIAA and MPAA put up in the US, aside from that it doesn't get as much traction up here.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
According to this site. They are apparently some sort of order founded around the worship of dolphins.
Or, possibly they are just a bunch of special interest groups similar to the RIAA in the US.
I'm trending to the Sancta Orca theory myself.
...right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute
As a Canadian, allow me to say these people need to fuck the hell off.
Please.
What? No need for me to be rude...
Currently they are in a state of cannibalism. Moose vs. man, man vs. wolf, wolf vs. baby strollers. Their leadership has abdicated to Keanu Reeves, having mistaken the recent remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as a documentary. The moose (meeses?) have taken advantage of this power vacuum and having no natural predators outside of orcas, are wrecking havoc and destruction through out the great land of Quebec.
How many copyright porn movies/images get copied over the internet.
How much of this money would be funneled directly to the porn industry compared to other copying.
Make that number public it will quickly be pushed under the table.
The Prime Minister decided to try and pass a budget that would cut funding to opposition parties and make sure that civil servants couldn't go on strike. This was met with a lot of yelling and wining. So the opposition parties(which consist of the majority of members of ailment) decided to get together and form a coalition government. The Prime Minister freaked out and asked the Governor General for a time out of ailment(prorogue), until after the new year. This basically makes it so that the opposition parties can't have a confidence vote and try and form a new government with them in power, or have a new election. This was given to the Prime Minister, now ailment is stuck only able to do everyday tasks and not do things like pass new laws and bills and crap.
It's all a big freaking gong show, so nothing will pass until the new year, and even then they will probably be focusing on each other and crying about how they got kicked out of the sandbox. Once that's done they will probably work on pushing the budget through(if we don't have a new election) which will consist of incessant debate over bailouts and more wining about what happened last week.
That's the political situation in a nut shell.
With our embattled prime minister basically shutting down Parliament until end of January, at which time he is likely to get turfed in a confidence motion, I don't think this proposal will see the light of day.
In fact, (crosses fingers) I don't think given how the opposition finally grew some gonads and ganged up to toss him out of his chair, he will dare re-introduce a C-61 clone either.
My rights don't need management.
Their leadership has abdicated to Keanu Reeves, having mistaken the recent remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as a documentary..
Woah....
We, your friendly neighbors to the West (Alaska) will very happily lend (very favorable terms, 50 year lease for 1 US dollar) our famous Governor. She knows how to deal with Meese.
Really, she's not doing much at the moment.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
ACTRA and SOCAN are Canada's recording industry associations. They parallel the US's MPAA and RIAA.
Not quite. CRIA is Canada's RIAA.
SOCAN is a performing rights organization, so it parallels the US's BMI and ASCAP.
I know nothing about ACTRA.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
I, for one, welcome my Canadian Cultural Overlords!
EH?
Lemme fix that for you:
Woah, dude....
Woah, eh?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Canadian Groups Call For Massive Net Regulation
. . . and, from the posts from the Canadian folks here:
Canadians, on the other hand, call for massive re-regulation, of Canadian Groups.
Re-regulation, with extreme prejudice.
Michael Moore argued that Canadians are more armed to the teeth than US Americans, but are not nearly as trigger happy.
I now think that the Canadians have been wisely conserving their ammunition, for times of ideas like Internet Cultural taxes.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
More than not quite. More like completely different than MPAA and RIAA.
As stated above, SOCAN is a performing rights organization. Specifically they handle the authoring and composition royalty of a piece of music. So I write a song, I become a member of SOCAN (as a Canadian), they track the usage of that song (typically radio play only) and they pay out a royalty for the authoring (lyrics) and composition (music) of the song.
ACTRA represents musicians to broker the royalties as they relate to (what is defined in Canada as) Neighbouring Rights (http://www.nrdv.ca/) which is essentially the "performance" of a recorded piece of music. So I play as a musician on a recorded piece of, it gets played (again, typically on the radio) and they pay out based on my performance on this piece.
This later concept differs greatly in the US, where terrestrial (AM/FM) radio does not owe "performance" royalties. SoundExchange via a whole heck of congress lobbying is the closest equivalent to ACTRA (or the two other Canadian associations that deal in these royalties), however, it only deals in Internet streaming and satellite radio. And, yes they totally fucked up.
SOCAN and ACTRA have historically helped to look after the little musicians. They are not inherently evil despite what the likely opinion on slashdot will be.
Now, as a musician, in Canada, who writes songs, gets airplay and, yes, has leftish values, I think that this is an acceptable compromise. Bars, restaurants, dentist offices, etc all get surcharged for playing music in Canada at their workplaces (as music is seen to add value to their business). The same argument can apply to ISPs who have more demand/usage by people looking to listen and become exposed to music. I think ultimately the impact to consumers will be negligible in terms of a rate increase (which is likely to be also monitored by the CRTC).
Over the past decade or so, I've noticed a trend. I'm not terribly bright, so I don't think I can be the only one who has noticed it but regardless, nobody is saying anything about it. No Slashdotters or bloggers ever raise this point, no journalists write explicitly about it even though it's right there in the news almost every day.
Let's say you're a huge government entity or industry coalition. You want a law (or series of laws) put into effect that, if passed by congress, would net you huge amounts of cash, power, or both. The problem is that almost everybody who hears about it is going to oppose it because they'll probably see it for what it is. Lobbyists are worth their weight in gold, but lobbyists don't outweigh enormous opposition from the press and public.
How do you get this extremely profitable but unlikely law passed? The solution turns out to be relatively easy:
1) Submit the bill for vote.
2) When the public outcry inevitably happens, reaffirm to the public that the bill must be made into law. Make a couple of unimportant token conciliatory changes and make a big deal about how you're willing to compromise.
3) Resubmit almost the exact same bill.
4) Watch it pass.
I've seen this happen in the U.S. for every almost single major unpopular bill that's been passed recently. The wall street bailout is the number one perfect example. This bill was an undisguised farce from the beginning. As dim as the American public tends to be, even they saw the evil in handing out hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street millionaires as a thank-you for screwing the world's economy while those who were *really* hurt (and without homes to boot) received not a single dime out of the deal. They presented the bill, the press and public said, "No effing way!" They presented it again with practically no changes and it passed with flying colors. Tell me, how does that happen?
I haven't been able to figure it out myself, but I wager it's to do with human psychology. You expose someone to an extreme idea once. After they get all done with being shocked and appalled, you expose them to it again (or to a slightly less shocking one) and they'll readily go along with it. Maybe when the idea is presented the second time, they think, "hey, it's not as bad as that first proposal." Or possibly people are just lazy and give up the fight after expending so much energy in the first opposition. I dunno. Another interesting point is that the more shocking the first presentation, the better the chance it has succeeding the second time around.
We're seeing it again with the Detroit bailout. The car companies made such an incredibly poor show the first time around, that Congress will probably say, "Well, they rode over in limousines this time at least, we should probably give them a few billion dollars to keep making shitty cars."
There's definitely a psychological effect and it's one that we, the public, would do well to wise up to soon because this is one tactic that's nearly 100% effective and has no effective counter-strategy because no one seems to be paying attention.
One province forced the entire country to have to be effectively bilingual. Then when that province wanted to secede, the First Nations who owned the land that 2/3 of their hydroelectric power came from, regardless of actual population numbers, refused to go along, and stopped it cold.
Are you trying to be funny? You've got modded "Interesting", so let me set some records strait. First, the "entire country" is not "effectively bilingual". It is officially bilingual as a whole, yes, but try speaking French in most parts of Canada outside the Province of Quebec... Even in several areas of Montreal, the biggest city of the francophone province (where I live), it can sometimes be hard to be served in French!
Second, as a French Canadian myself, I'm convinced First Nations did not play a big role at the last referendum. Sure, they were part of a very large equation, but clearly did not "stopped it cold" as you claim. And they don't "own" the 2/3 of electricity-providing land of the province.
Animoog.org
Looks like two branches of the R.I.A.EH to me.
While some canadians tell me that they believe people that this dude thinks that he is this dude, I completely disagree, however I think that
this guy believes himself to be this guy.
This asshole really wants to be this asshole
This goof is really this goof.
You can't handle the truth.
As the only other Canadian on slashdot, I second these opinions.
SOCAN isn't anywhere near as evil as the RIAA. The CRIA on the other hand, they're a bunch of creeps serving the big distributors, and the CRTC is the industry's sock puppet. Those last two don't add much value for Canadian artists, not unless you're a platinum-selling act who can afford to buy one of their reps.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I'm also a Canadian on Slashdot, and a hobbyist musician.
I have no issue with Socan collecting royalties when someone plays Canadian commercial music for financial benefit.
What I don't support is the blanket coverage "guilty until .. nah, guilty" that they promote along with the CRIA.
For example: anytime someone books a local hall for rent, you have to pay a couple hundred bucks to Socan, even if you were playing your own originals, or perhaps you're a Beatles cover band etc.
They don't send these royalties to non Canadian artists, only to Canadian Artists with a "recognized commercial recording contract", who recorded and produced their music in Canada,
proportional to the number of record sales said artist has, so Celine Dion rakes in lots more free cash, and little or no benefit to independent or self published artists.
A similar thing happens to the tax on blank CD's etc.
This is utter socialist bullshit.
Considering nowadays people can create their own music for under $1000.00 and promote it on the internet for free, this welfare system for commercial artists is quite ridiculous.
The commercial recording industry is an obsolete and dying business model that should be taken off of the government provided life support, and they know it. It's a good time for them to try to get a new source of income from the government, while said government is in a shambles.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.