The NY Times has published a supportive editorial on the recent UN report linking Internet access to basic human rights. The editorial references graduated response rules, calling the French and UK laws “draconian.”
Archive for July, 2011
Nowak on Seven Steps for Telecom Reform
Peter Nowak posts seven steps to Canadian telecom reform, noting that the issues are not left or right from a political perspective.
Beware Big Pharma Ghostwriters
Dr. Marc-André Gagnon, an assistant professor with the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University and Dr. Sergio Sismondo, professor of Philosophy and Sociology at Queen’s University, write an op-ed about the growing problem of big pharmaceutical companies ghost writing opinion pieces in support of their drugs.
Why Competition Holds the Key to a Broken Broadcast System
The Commission’s struggle to make sense of the changing corporate and technological landscape – alongside lobbying for new industry codes of practice and Internet regulations – is rooted in a regulatory framework premised on scarcity rather than abundance. When the law was crafted, broadcasters occupied a privileged position, since the creation of video was expensive and the spectrum needed to distribute it scarce. As a result, the government established a licensing system complete with content requirements and cultural contributions designed to further a myriad of policy goals.
Yet among the more than 40 policy goals found in the current Broadcasting Act, the word “competition” does not appear once. The absence of competition may have made sense when there was little of it, but in today’s world of abundance featuring a seemingly unlimited array of content and distribution possibilities, fostering competition among broadcasters and broadcast distributors such as cable and satellite companies might hold the key to reforming the system.
What might a competition-focused broadcast policy look like?
Why Competition Holds the Key to a Broken Broadcast System
Appeared in the Toronto Star on July 3, 2011 as Why Competition Holds the Key to a Broken Broadcast System As the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission concludes its hearing on the consolidation of the Canadian communications market into a handful of corporate giants (so-called vertical integration) and embarks on […]