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The following was sent to the contacts listed on the Bell Media press release from 2016 . Ever since this deal it has been harder to legally stream Doctor Who in Canada. While space.ca previously offered episodes, it is now locked down and requires login via a legacy cable package. While Crave is mentioned for previous seasons after they were taken off of Netflix, a Crave subscription (even the add-on package) doesn't enable legal streaming of new episodes. Bell finally folded HBO Canada into Crave to make that content available for legal streaming, and clearly it needs to do the same with SPACE rather than driving people away from legal streaming options. I have been paying for the full seasons of Doctor Who through Google Play . Episodes are often late and in the case of the latest episode from New Years it didn't show up at all. I found the Google Play option on my own, and Space has been unwilling to even disclose this legal streaming option when asked multiple times....

To say I am a fan of the Doctor Who universe would be an understatement. I've been watching since childhood.  In preparation of the 50th anniversary in November 2013 I did a re-watch of every episode since 1963.  I purchased the DVD of every story available in DVD format, listened to the soundtrack for those where video has been lost, and  in one case listened to the audio book of the novelization.  I have all the DVD's for spin-offs Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, many CD's of audiobooks and soundtracks, and am a subscriber to many audio play series via Big Finish (Doctor Who main range pre-paid through to October 2019).  I even get a daily briefing from Doctor Who News sent to my email. I heard the rumors, read the announcements, watched the trailers and interviews, and was eagerly anticipating the launch of spin-off Class . While I would prefer to have watched Saturday when the first episodes were released, I've become familiar with having to wait unt...

Since the 1950's there have been some Canadians who believe that in order to protect the culture of Canada we need to restrict Canadian's access to culture from outside of Canada.  Concepts such as CanCon has existed in positive forms such as government funding for Canadian creators, but has also existed in negative form such as restrictions on what Canadians can access of non-Canadian creativity. While the restrictions may have made sense in the 1950's in a pre-Internet era, the restrictions simply don't make sense any more.  Like a number of other modernizations we have seen recently, the reasons why we should eradicate these restrictions comes down to that simple slogan: because it's 2016. CanCon We need to modernize how we think about CanCon, and who the target of regulations should be. In a broadcast era we had the problem that there were intermediaries that programmed what people could see and when.  As it was not Canadians themselves that are making these cho...

In early April I subscribed to CraveTV to evaluate it, and 6 months later I'm less happy with it. Technical I wrote in the earlier article how CraveTV worked on few of the devices that I owned, but that at least it would work with my regular Chromebook and the Chromecast.   This didn't last long, as an upgrade of Chrome OS which made cast functionality native to the browser later in June was incompatible with CraveTV.  I would have thought CraveTV would fix their site relatively quickly, but the problem persists. The next most convenient way to watch CraveTV was to run an HDMI cable across the living room floor to connect the Chromebook with the TV.  I say next most convenient as CraveTV is not at all convenient.  The web interface hasn't improved since my last posting. I still find myself having to do a search for things which are already in my "cravings" in order to choose the right episode to show next, as the interface often doesn't accurately select th...

Contrast the following DVD pre-releases: Doctor Who: Series 9 Part 1 This title will be released on November 3, 2015. Doctor Who is currently airing on Space television (Currently owned by Bell Media) on Saturdays, with the rest of the first half airing later this October - with the DVD of those episodes being made available the week after.  As someone who doesn't have cable and isn't a customer of a BDU for Internet, I can also watch the episodes the day after they air on cable streamed from the space.ca website.  Past seasons starting from 2005 through to last years's Christmas special are all available on Netflix. Personal: I'm watching via the website each week, and will be purchasing the full season DVD when it is released.  If last year is any indication, it will be available in December prior to the airing of the Christmas special (which will be available early in the new year). Game of Thrones: Season 5 This title will be released on March 15, 2016 Game of Thro...

If you haven't tried to use them, you might wonder why the websites that Canadian broadcasters (or most often, the BDUs that own them) offer isn't a substitute for the subscription services I've been asking for.  You might ask why I would be willing to pay the BBC to watch Doctor Who when I could watch it for "free" by going to Space.ca/doctorwho .  The problem is these BDU/Broadcaster provided streaming websites are so poorly implemented that even if they were commercial free I would still prefer to pay for a working subscription service. I have become used to well designed content distribution services like Netflix and YouTube which work well on all the devices that I own.  I prefer to watch television on my television, which means my Samsung Smart TV, BoxeeBox or Chromecasts.  I sometimes like to watch mobile with my ASUS Transformer tablet (Android), my Nexus 4 smartphone, or one of the variety of Chromebooks in our family.  The place I least like to watch t...

Some copyright holders and their lobbyists claim the reason people infringe Copyright is because they don't want to pay, and that copyright infringement is the largest single problem reducing their revenue potential. Evidence I've seen in my decades involved in the copyright revision process suggested neither are true, and that barriers put up by the copyright holders are the largest incentive to infringe and the largest barrier to revenue potential. The BBC is an example of a broadcaster I would like to pay money and subscribe to (not only for Doctor Who ), but that continues to put up barriers to me doing so. I am not a subscriber to a BDU , which is one of the common tied sales used by broadcasters. What potential customers like myself want for television and movie content is a subscription service like Netflix which isn't tied to any specific BDU or Internet provider, and which works on enough devices that it works on devices which we own. It's not just millenn...

The following is a comment I added to a Kasterborous editorial: iTunes, BBC? Really? This is not a question of money for me — I have spent $thousands$ in recent years on my love of Doctor Who , and I’m more than willing to pay extra to get early access to these episodes before the DVD’s come out. Unfortunately BBC didn’t give me that option, so I will need to either wait for the DVD’s or get the episodes from an “unauthorized” source. I am not a customer of Apple, nor will I ever be. I’ve spent more than a decade of my life as a political activist in support of IT property rights. As I discussed in a recent submission to the Canadian government on this issue http://c11.ca/brief , Apple is one of the worst infringers of IT property rights. They also actively lobby for legalizing and legally protecting infringements of IT property rights. While Apple is a direct infringer, inducing people into infringing situations puts the BBC in the same league for those of us trying to protect these ...

Since we have been told that John Hurt would be playing an incarnation of The Doctor in the 50'th Anniversary Special in November, there has been speculation as to which number he would be. There is the idea that he is the doctor previous to William Hartnell, meaning that William was not the first incarnation -- just the first one called "The Doctor". There is the idea that Hurt plays the incarnation who fought the Time War, situating him between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston.  This still means Matt Smith is the 11'th "Doctor", but as with the first theory he isn't the 11'th incarnation of that Gallifreyan. There was the idea that Hurt is playing The Valeyard , an incarnation of The Doctor somewhere between the twelfth and so-called "final" regeneration.  Earlier this month we learned that this option isn't happening as Big Finish announced Trial of the Valeyard  as a new audio play.  We know that Big Finish is in constant com...

I'm a big fan of science fiction, and my favorite is Doctor Who .  One thing I do find annoying is when science fiction is too light on the science part, and perpetuates the general lack of scientific knowledge of our "modern" society.  Like constantly spelling quality with a "K", science fiction lacking in credible science makes us less intelligent while good science fiction can help us better understand ourselves, science, and how we interact with technology. While we don't know how to travel in time or as quickly in space, it is not that aspect of science fiction like Doctor Who that bothers me.  I am bothered when science fiction takes a real-world technology and makes it into something it can't be, or stories which aren't internally consistent with how science would work in the fictional world created. Two recent Doctor Who episodes are examples of good and bad science: The Bells of Saint John is the most recent television episode(11'th Doc...

Back in May 2008 I offered my thoughts on three services that offered Cory Doctorow's Little Brother as an audio book. Audible didn't work at all, Zipidee worked but was less than ideal, and eMusic was the best of the three. As part of the 50'th anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who I have decided to go where I've never been before, and check out some of the Doctor Who audio-books. AudioGO offers Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures that are based on TV Soundtracks, readings of novelizations, as well as original stories. Big Finish offers many original science fiction audio dramas for Doctor Who , Stargate and Sherlock Holmes. It goes without saying that like eMusic both offer unencrypted (AKA: DRM-free) audio in vendor-neutral audio formats, which in this case included MP3. I discussed my unwillingness to access or pay for DRM-infected audio-books in the 2008 article. I suspect given these services have a focus on science fiction that they recognize...