It’s Record Store Day 2014 !
A great day to go out and visit your local independent record stores to nab either a great deal or the latest albums from one of your local indie artists. Maybe both ?
Bill S-4 – (The not quite) Digital Privacy Act ?
I had originally wanted to wait until the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released a report on Bill S-4 before commenting but decided that I should just go ahead and post something about this senate bill.
This bill was proposed to help in the cases of security breaches, to help control identity theft. But unfortunately it may also cause individuals to have their information given to third parties without their consent or knowledge.
“an organization may disclose personal information without the knowledge or consent of the individual if
(a) the disclosure is made to the other organization, the government institution or the part of a government institution that was notified of the breach under subsection (1); and
(b) the disclosure is made solely for the purposes of reducing the risk of harm to the individual that could result from the breach or mitigating that harm.” – Bill S-4, Section 10.2 (3)
Furthermore warrants may not be required under Bill C-13 and the costs associated to the infrastructure required to keep records of your online activities would be passed onto either consumers and/or taxpayers.
Are to believe this bill is meant to improve our situation ? We would be paying more for internet and give more private information to a government that was just hacked because of the Heartbeat Bug.
I think this bill needs to be re-written. And if you do too I think you should sign the Open Media petition on Privacy.
Thank you.
More Gift Card Offers
Real Canadian Superstores and Target Canada stores are currently 15% discounts on iTunes gift cards.
Participating Real Canadian Superstores are offering this discount on $30 multipacks up to April 17th, 2014 with a special coupon obtained from their gift card display.
Participating Target Canada stores are offering their discount on all iTunes gift cards up to April 10th, 2014.
If you are unable to get this discount through your local Real Canadian Superstore or Target Canada location, then try your local Rexall Pharmacy. They offer a 10% of these gift cards until April 10th, 2014.
Gift Card Offer @ Target
Participating Target stores in Canada are offering 15% off iTunes cards until April 3rd, 2014. Please consult your local flyer for details.
Free Television Online ? Tou.tv Update.
Francophone service Tou.tv has decided to offer extra content to their subscriber. But again it appears that some people will get this content free and some people will need to pay $6.99 per month for the service.
Now rebranded as ici.tou.tv, the Radio-Canada affiliate will offer their extra content free to Telus and Rogers subscribers but this commercial free content will only be available as a subscription to everyone else.
Personally I used the service to catch up on Radio-Canada Television programs La Facture, L’épicerie, Découverte and La Semaine Verte whenever I missed an episode of these series. But now I don’t know if the service will remain accessible on my Smart TV, as is, or if it will only be able to access a few episodes because I am not on Telus or Rogers.
The site is currently in beta so details are light. But it appears that users might already be limited to one or two seasons worth of episodes online.
I have checked the recordings for the aforementioned series and they appear to be limited to the most recent season, which is acceptable. But hopefully they are not considering further cuts to the free content.
I have noticed that they have added quite a few Pierre Richard films so I’m a bit tempted to take advantage of their $3.49 offer, which is valid for three months. And I’m sure if they were to offer more films from TV5, TFO and Telé Québec I would possibly consider subscribing. But I’m guessing they will take some time to get the site up and running at full speed.
Is Free Television Being Phased Out ?
Do you guys remember when we were first told that off air television broadcasts would go digital and that more people would be getting free television using antennas ?
Do you remember when we could watch television programs for free online legally through the Canadian network web sites ?
Well, if you want proof that the cable and satellite companies don’t want people to “cut the cord” you just have to look at the current status of television in Canada.
It started with Global Television in my area.
I had decided to stop paying $7 plus tax per month for extra outlets and although I was able to receive Global Television clearly for months, it has suddenly disappeared one summer.
Apparently the owner of the network decided to reduce the strength of the transmission so now an external antennae is required. But this was of course no problem because I was able to access television programs online via the network’s web site.
Then a few months back I noticed I was no longer receiving CTV, which had a strong signal until then.
I am located within 15 kilometers from the broadcasting tower for both stations so there was no reason for my loss of CTV as well. But like Global Television, CTV is also owned by a cable or satellite provider so I had assumed that they also reduced their off air broadcasting strength. And again I decided to stick to on demand and online broadcasts until I get an external antenna.
By then I had switched from Rogers Cable to Bell Fibe TV so I was mostly just watching television programs on demand for free, just like I has done with Rogers. But since Rogers had purchased the rights to the hockey broadcasts there appeared to be issues relating to what could be viewed by what subscribers online.
Now Canadians are being asked to login their cable or satellite provider accounts to view television programs on the major network sites. And the selection of programing is currently limited to the networks owned by their provider.
Bravo.
Personally I think we should be able to get our local channels off air and online based on our IP address.
There should be enough advertisement revenue there for networks to profit on and cable and satellite providers could always give people access to specialty networks and on demand programming.
We should be progressing off the problematic off air VHF frequencies and move stations to UHF like most American networks have.
Phase 3 of the “Let’s Talk TV” consultations at the CRTC will begin in April with the publication of details on the public hearing scheduled in September. And from the government’s response last Budget Day, it appears that our cable/satellite channels may get unbundled.
Hopefully this will not be more expensive for consumers, a concern we should all share because these companies have been hiking their rates excessively over the past few years.
The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting estimated in Oct 2013 that many of Canada’s cable companies had hiked their rates from 81% to 96% since 2002 ; Almost five times inflation. And Forbes believes the model is unsustainable so we’ve got to wonder what exactly we’re going to be subjected to as consumers.
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had mentioned that “cable-TV companies have become like utilities because there are only so many providers that offer the service in a certain region” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last October so perhaps the current government is considering regulating them. But I guess we’ll only know for sure after the public hearings in September.
By the way, you can access information in regards to the previous phases of “Let’s Talk TV” on the official CRTC web site, which includes comments from the public.