Pain In The Tariff!
So, I was eying “Dexter’s Laboratory – The Complete Collection” at several retailers and had never considered that the tariffs would have a secondary effect on goods that are not tariffed so I didn’t expect sticker shock a few days back – The price of this DVD collection just skyrocketed, by $30 at some of these retailers.
Like CDs and vinyl, DVDs and Blu-rays are not currently included in the list of goods that are being subjected to tariffs. But I suspect their prices will go up in the states, well above the $20 postal importation exemption, which is rather annoying. And I presume any shipment from the states would be delayed going through customs because they’ll have more forms to fill out, unless Canadians just stop importing from the states via mail.
I did just order the collection from a Canadian seller on eBay for the amount I had encountered before the hike, preferring to avoid the American and Chinese sellers. And if need be I could always try the U.k and Europe for other releases as well.
I personally like Amazon u.k, Amazon France and FNAC for CDs and Region Free DVDs from Europe, and I do have a region free DVD player for some French films that never made their way to DVD in North America. But sometimes deals can be had for under $20 Canadian, not including shipping, and sometimes the shipping rates are acceptable.
I have emailed my local MP and several electoral candidates suggesting a $60 exemption for postal importations from Europe, the U.k and several more of our stable trade partners so I’m hoping we’ll be able to order more from those countries after the election is done.
If you want to support a $60 exemption for postal imports, which is long overdue, you can contact your local Member of Parliament via this form, after the election of course.
Hopefully we’ll be done with this tariff nonsense soon…
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OTA Television Changes Along The Border
Yesterday I received a notice from WPBS-TV, the PBS station based in Watertown NY that broadcasts to Eastern Ontario, that they will be changing over-the-air channels on July 29th, 2019. And apparently several American television stations have already begun transitioning to new channels to free up frequencies for wireless services.
People who use television antennas in southwestern Ontario area have already needed to rescan to find WMYD broadcasts from Detroit on June 1st, 2019 and a new wave of channel changes are expected in July, this transition eventually ending in the summer of 2020.
If you’re getting these stations from cable, satellite or online, you will not see any changes. But if you use a television antenna to get any American station you will need to pay attention to notices by your favourite stations, that will be posted on their official sites and social media feeds for information related to this transition.
Many channels will also start airing notices featuring known personalities from television programs like The Doctors, Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Dr.Phil, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy a month or so before their transition date. And monthly roundups of these transitions are also posted on the official TV Answers Blog, with occasional posts regarding individual channels appearing on TV Answer’s Facebook page.
I’m a bit too deep into Ontario to get American television stations via my antenna but thought people along the border would like to know.
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Tariffed?
It appears that books, sheet music, compact discs, DVDs, vinyl records, blu-rays and most memorabilia that originate from the United States will not be subject to tariffs according to the list of potentially tariffed items.
In regards to memorabilia, you will notice that playing cards, printed cards, postcards, ball point pens, felt markers, sleeping bags and bedding from the United States are on this list and may be subject to tariffs on July 1st, 2018, although products that weren’t made in the states may be exempt.
Just in case you wanted to know.
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Net Neutrality Simplified
Imagine this situation – You want to rent a blockbuster and your internet provider’s film rental site offers this film for $6.99 in HD whilst another film rental site offers it for $4.99, also in HD. And thinking that because they’re both listed as HD you rent from your internet provider’s competitor only to notice pixelization caused by slow download speeds.
Now imagine you’re completely fine paying more to rent films and one day hear about this great flick that everyone’s raving about on the internet. But you can’t find it on your internet provider’s film rental site and have no choice but rent it from one of your internet provider’s competitors, subjecting yourself to the aforementioned issues.
This would be the norm if net neutrality was abolished.
Internet providers with a larger market share would use this status to demand payment for access to their customers and would shut out film rental companies that didn’t pay up, including the companies set up by their competing internet providers.
You’d be at the mercy of media conglomerates fighting each other, as they hinder the speeds of each other’s services and fight for the exclusive rights to certain films, music, and services.
You’d have dropouts whilst streaming and slow transfer issues accessing your own files on cloud services because these services didn’t pay up or is owned by the competitors of those that did. And this would only get worse when you’re on the go and use wi-fi services from different providers at your favorite hotspots.
Seriously, travelers would also see their speeds drop if they happen to choose an American hotel whose internet is throttled, especially when they throttle sites on which operating system and security software updates are hosted.
They’re not lowering their prices, they’re making it harder for people to access services that do and making content providers pay to access their share of the market, in many cases resulting in a reduction of royalties for artists, composers, writers, etc. And who knows if publicly funded internet like those at public libraries will be subject to internet traffic management practices?
How exactly is this progress?
As it stands, Net Neutrality in Canada is supported by the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission, several last mile internet providers and three political parties, the Liberals, NDP and Green Party. And both Rogers and Bell made statements that they would end throttling in late 2011 and early 2012.
Netflix is currently keeping track of the speed of our internet providers accessing their services and publishing their results on their Netflix ISP Speed Index site and I’m guessing if push comes to shove more of those sites will appear.
Hopefully, the internet providers in the states will figure out this is all counterproductive because people that eventually find out that they’re being throttled needlessly get more demanding and all it takes for their competition to nab their customers are anti-throttling policies.
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New Saga CD
Saga has released a new album, entitled “20/20
The new CD will be released on July 24th in Canada
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A Protect IP Video
Americans can click here to write a letter to Congress about PIPA and SOPA. Canadians can also direct their American friends and relatives to the site at http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa.
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