The CRTC has posted its notice on the forthcoming new media hearings which will focus on whether regulatory measures are needed to promote Canadian new media and whether the new media exemption order remains valid. Comments are due by December 5th. The hearing is scheduled to begin on February 17, 2009. I wrote about the hearings in a recent column.
CRTC Posts Notice on New Media Hearings
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CRTC: serving big corporations and imposing unnecessary limits
I see this as more censorship. After all, all that CRTC is about is to impose limits where there are none and where there should be none.
At the same time they pretend that they do not have teeth to regulate where there ARE limits: taxpayer-funded last mile is inherently limited.
CRTC To Decide What’s Valid?
The CRTC is to decide whether the new media exemption order remains valid?
As one who has attended CRTC meetings and has seen the years of irrepairable damage they have done to people in and outside the industry from a direct result of poor decisions and faulty regulations, and as one who has had close to 3 decades of service in the electronic media, I can only say that, considering the losses that the Canadian public continues to gather, I believe that it is the CRTC that should come under scrutiny. New media is the future. The CRTC is the past.
The CRTC stifles more creativity than it promotes. For every advantage there is equal or more disadvantage placed upon Canada’s citizens. Rules, regulations, and authority needs to be downsized. The taxpayer and the market should, without a CRTC, make the decisions within a sensible law abiding society. Media is used to self regulation and, with a market to dictate success or failure, this self regulation would have to be kept in check accordingly. Canadians can compete,they should compete, they should be permitted to compete, and all Canadians should be better off for it.
If the CRTC (and today’s recording industry) were around when marvelous inventions were being developed in Brantford, Ontario, we and industry might have never reaped the benefits from Alexander Graham Bell or others like him. I believe that was new media back then. Incidentally, I’m sure that other existing methods of communication hit the dust after Alexander’s contributions, perhaps, just as before, industry should accept and share the inevitable consequences of progress.
Just as the wire and tape recorders provided traditional recordings for business to sell, we too should look to our traditions as a pillar to embrace.
People have only one life, too bad it includes the CRTC. Time would be better spent considering the CRTC’s validity. I know that I am not alone in this opinion.