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."
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.
...right here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute
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.
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.
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).
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.