Archive for March, 2009

Tell Me Lies

This evening I participated in a lively, well-attended forum on copyright in Toronto. Hosted by MP Olivia Chow, the panel included MP Charlie Angus, Victoria Owen (representing the Canadian Library Association), Stephen Waddell (ACTRA), and Don Quarles (Songwriters). A streamed version of the event should soon be available here.

While the discussion covered a range of issues and featured some important revelations which I'll address soon in a separate post, I thought that I would post my opening remarks. I used as my starting point Clay Shirky's terrific post on the weekend about newspapers and applied some of his thoughts to Canadian copyright. My prepared remarks:

March 19, 2009 — 10 comments — News

Making It Work Copyright Forum

Later today I'll be participating in a copyright forum in Toronto together with MPs Olivia Chow and Charlie Angus, as well as representatives from ACTRA, the Songwriters Association of Canada, and the Canadian Library Association. Details at the Facebook event page or catch the event streamed on UStream.

March 18, 2009 — Comments are Disabled — News

Counting Crows Go Label Free

TechCrunch reports that the Counting Crows had ended their relationship with their music label, following frustration over the inability to aggressively use the Internet.

March 18, 2009 — 2 comments — News

Canada’s First Street View Service Launched

IT Business reports that Canpages.ca has launched Canada's first street view serivce, with photos of Vancouver, Whistler, and Squamish, B.C.

March 18, 2009 — 1 comment — News

The CRTC New Media Hearing – What Comes Next?

With the conclusion of the CRTC New Media hearing last week, the Commission will now digest the many hours of testimony and thousands of pages of documents with the goal of reaching a decision on the future of new media exception/regulation later this year (day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). While no one knows what the CRTC will do, this posting contains my best guess.

The hearings highlighted that there are several new media broadcasting platforms and that the potential solutions differ for each. I think three in particular will garner attention – fixed Internet, wireless/mobile Internet, and Internet radio.

March 18, 2009 — 10 comments — News