LibrarianActivist.org

I heard this story on the CBC this evening, but can’t seem to find mention of it on the CBC website. The Toronto Star published a piece on it yesterday, however. It seems that Calgary-based Shaw Communications is refusing to pay its annual share into the Canadian Television Fund. What’s the Canadian Television Fund, you ask? It’s that thing that makes all those Canadian TV shows and documentaries possible. They brought you Trailer Park Boys, for goodness’ sake. According to the star yesterday:

If Shaw goes, more than 20 per cent of the CTF’s annual $250 million budget –which comes from cable and satellite subscription fees as well as tax dollars – goes with him. Fears are, other distributors will follow.

That’s a big chunk of money. And in the CBC story I heard, Shaw had been joined by Videotron (a division of Quebecor). Broadcasters are supposed to give 5% of their profits to the CTF every year.

The clincher? The Canadian Television Fund is up for renewal this coming spring - and if big business is challenging the CTF’s validity (there have been allegations of conflict of interest in doling out funding for Canadian television programs), it could be in for the big axe. And if you think less Canadian content on TV isn’t such a big deal - just remember what Trudeau said: “Living next to the United States is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” That elephant won’t give a damn when it rolls over us.

Please do your bit to call your MP in support of the Canadian Television Fund. Better yet, if you’re a Shaw subscriber, please call them up and cancel - tell them you won’t support a company that would pull money from Canadian programming. So the CTF needs some reform. But the whole corporate media scene in this country needs it even more! Stephen Harper’s not going to care about Canadian broadcasting so we’re going to have to do it ourselves.

As a shocking aside - isn’t it INSANE that these companies are so big that one of them can threaten to kill a massive national program just by withholding a measly 5% of its profits? So dirty.

-SIO

PS - One more clincher from the same Toronto Star story:

The CRTC, which established the fund, is in no position to squawk. It is without a chairperson and has a number of commission positions up for grabs.

CBC, which schedules many of the documentaries that the CTF subsidizes, is also without a chairperson and has a lame duck president in Robert Rabinovitch.

Even Telefilm lacks a chairperson and is short of board members. The National Film Board has no commissioner.

All of these are federal appointments. But Heritage Minister Bev Oda is silent.

So yes. We should all write to Bev Oda and ask her for one of those jobs!

Most people reading this are probably familiar with LibraryThing, a web site that allows you to easily enter and catalogue your books, see the libraries of others (including those with a similar collection to yours) and much more. But LibraryThing is not the only site in this area.

Shelfari is the latest addition to the “social-networking via your book collection” world. Web 2.0 news site, TechCrunch covers this new site and a few of its competitors in a recent post which also generated some good discussion among TechCrunch readers.

- JH

I sometimes wonder if online petitions carry any weight. Only one way to find out - please fill out the following (it only takes a second) and we’ll see.

MoveOn.org petition against escalation of US military forces in Iraq.

Here’s the full release:

Dear friends,

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

- JH

Net Neutrality:
A Public Discussion on the Future of the Internet in Canada

Date and Location:
February 6, 2007 , 7 pm
Admission: Free
Ottawa Public Library Auditorium
120 Metcalfe St.

Moderated by:
Pippa Lawson: Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa

Panelists:

• Michael Geist: Professor of Law, Research Chair of Internet and E-Commerce Law, University of Ottawa
• Ren Bucholz: Electronic Frontier Foundation Policy Coordinator, Americas
• Andrew Clement: Professor, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto; Principal Investigator, Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking
• Bill St-Arnaud: Senior Director, Advanced Networks for CANARIE, Inc.

Event:
Please join us for a an important public discussion on the future of the Internet in Canada. Network neutrality recently became a major issue in the United States when telecommunications companies issued public statements asking for the ability to charge Internet content-providers for preferential access to Internet users. That meant that big corporations, especially media conglomerates, would get to Internet users fastest while smaller ones, which would be unable to pay the “tolls”, would be left trailing. Meanwhile, Internet users could be restricted from using certain applications, and would likely have to pay more to access content of providers that weren’t part of the telecommunications company’s exclusivity deals.

Net neutrality has been an issue in Canada for at least two years, but the release in March 2006 of the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel’s Final Report renewed both corporate and public interest in the topic. In the United States, net neutrality is currently on hold as legislators debate the issue; in Canada, the federal government is considering major changes to telecommunications regulation and its commitment to network neutrality is uncertain - hence the need for public debate before more decisions are made.

We are also inviting politicians to attend this panel discussion, and we hope that with a good turnout, our policy-makers will understand what an important issue network neutrality is for Canadians, and that the separation of telecommunications companies from content providers is in the interest of all Internet users. While the Internet has largely been managed as a democratic commons there are hints that it can become a privately-controlled medium. The 2005 move by Telus to block customer access to the “Voices For Change” Telecommunications Workers Union website is but one example of a private-sector threat to network neutrality.

For more information on the topic, please visit the following websites and online news articles:

• Battle over ‘net neutrality’ arrives in Canada
• The Net at Risk
• The Telecom Policy Review: The Rest of the Story
• The Alternative Telecommunications Policy Forum
• Net Neutrality in Canada
• Save the Internet: Net Neutrality in USA

If you are unable to attend, please note that a video of the event will be made publicly available.

Wayne State LIS student, Garrett Hungerford who runs Library Zen has used the new Google Co-op service to create a search engine of library blogs. The Library Zen companion site is called LISZen. (Hmm, if only I knew a library-related blog I could submit…)

- JH