Friday was the deadline for written submissions to the CRTC's New Media hearing and the Commission has already posted filings from nearly 100 individuals and organizations [now nearly 150 submissions]. While there are some noteworthy side copyright issues (the CMPDA – the Canadian arm of the MPAA – is concerned that dropping the new media exception would bring back iCraveTV and the legality of Internet retransmission, while CRIA implausibly argues without any evidence that "one of the factors that has significantly restricted legitimate Canadian broadcasting content being delivered and accessed over the Internet is the proliferation of unauthorized file swapping and downloading"), the real fight in the February hearings will come down to three issues:
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