rwmtest

Policy makers during much of the 1990's liked to use the phrase "Information Superhighway", trying to make an analogy between transportation technology and communications technology. With all the recent talk about the future of Canadian television, I started thinking about analogies between transportation and our video distribution systems. Walking could be compared to over the air terrestrial transmission, which can't reach very far and can be thought of as the beginning of our transportation and video distribution journey. Riding animals was our next step for transportation, which in my mind is analogous to the creation of Cable, Satellite, and related "Broadcast Distribution Undertakings" (BDU).  We had some choice over what animal to ride, and we could get a bit further, but we were still moving slowly. Riding carts pulled by animals might be seen as the next step for transportation, analogous to BDUs going digital with BDU technology dependent set-top b...

I sent the following to my MP and Ontario MPP, after reading a few articles on Michael Geist's blog about Ontario’s Campaign for a Netflix Tax . For me this isn't about price, as I believe I get good value for money from Netflix and wouldn't mind paying more. For me this is a question of fairness, with the Ontario government having naive, counterproductive, and outrageously backwards ideas of what constitutes fairness in this area of policy. I recommend other people in Ontario write to their MPPs and MPs on this issue. To: John Fraser (MPP) and David McGuinty (MP), I am a constituent of Ottawa South, sending this to both my MPP and my MP as this area of policy has considerable Federal-Provincial overlap.  Please forward to the relevant ministers and government departments as appropriate.  This should include the Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport and his Deputy Minister.  The Deputy Minister has already made some of his views on this area of policy known. ...

Out of interest I subscribe to the email mailing lists of all 4 Canadian parties with members in the house of Commons (I have no interest in the Quebec-only parties).  While there is nothing unexpected in the mailings from the Greens, Liberals and NDP, I find the messaging from the Harper Conservatives to be surprising.  In their choice of parliamentary activity to highlight, and the language they use, they come off as excessively emotional, immature and naive. I could quote specific examples from mailings, legislation and media, but I suspect we have all seen it. There seems to be no recognition that there is a difference between being tough on crime and terrorism is very different than being tough on criminals and terrorists.  There seems to be a simplistic focus on punishment rather than looking into the reasons why people commit acts which are put under these labels.  There also seems to be an ever increasing list of activities which are being put under these lab...

I have found the media attention around the recognition that manufacturers like Samsung can spy on technology owners to be interesting. After decades of misunderstanding, ignoring, misdirecting or actively lobbying against owners on this issue, the media is finally reporting one of many examples of the issue. While some are starting to discuss complex and expensive regulation to manage some of the worst symptoms of this problem, I still believe that fully recognizing and legally protecting technology property rights is the most effective solution. Unfortunately the Harper Government has thus far been opposed to property rights, so it might be an uphill battle to solve the problem in Canada. Fundamentally the problem is that technology is obeying the instructions of a third party, rather than those of the owner. These instructions exist in the form of software, so it needs to be the owner and not a third party who chooses what software is executed on any hardware they own. Most tech...

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...

As Shomi received a lot of advertising in recent months I have been asked my opinion on it. I'm known as someone who has strong opinions on digital content distribution, and as someone who is a subscriber to Netflix and not to any traditional BDU (Broadcast Distribution Undertaking, the term the CRTC uses to refer to Satellite, Cable, and related companies). My shortest answer is to say these these services aren't new, nor are they in the same market as Netflix. These services are an add-on service for existing BDU customers (Must be Television customer for Bell, but can be existing TV or Internet customer for Rogers and Shaw), and not a service that is untied to the BDU. Rogers launched Rogers On Demand Online back in 2009, and I tried it back then when I was still a Rogers cable customer. I could almost watch a movie on my desktop computer with it, but it didn't work on the various devices I had connected to my television. It was a poorly implemented technology which...