Zellers Is Back – My Initial Review
Zellers is back online and in select Hudson Bay stores in Canada. And of course i’m interested in seeing what they have for audio fans.
The online store has just opened so nothing is being offered when it comes to home entertainment appliances, but a limited amount of cell phone and vlogging accessories can be found on the site, as well as a very small selection of licensed toys, although the licensed merchandise catalog is still offline.
They just opened so i’m expecting them to expand their catalog beyond their limited selection of home furnishings, clothing and retro merchandise. And who knows, maybe they’ll have a vinyl section soon now that sales of this format have skyrocketed back past CD sales.
I don’t see them opening stores full of vinyl, like yesteryear, but we might see online ordering and pickups. One can hope…
By the way, if you are interested in purchasing something from the store, Rakuten is offering 1% back on purchases at Zellers because they’re under the Hudson Bay banner.
Here is an offer for new members. And I believe you can get 20% off by paying with a Mastercard using this coupon until the 24th.
Censorship Proposed
As you may or may not know, several companies have formed a lobby group called FairPlay Canada in order to block certain sites deemed to contain pirated material.
This group proposes the creation of a non-profit entity called the Independent Piracy Review Agency to administer this blocking “under the supervision of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to help prevent international piracy sites and organizations from reaching and harming Canada’s creative economy”, as stipulated in a January 29th, 2018 application to the CRTC (PDF). But numerous issues in regards to this were brought up by Openmedia, including issues related to censorship and Net Neutrality. And one has to wonder who will be paying for this initiative.
Personally I have concerns about any entity being tasked with blocking sites because of what happened in July 2005, when Telus decided to block a pro-union website and blocked over 760 sites that just happened to share this pro-union website’s server “by accident”.
A preliminary injunction was required to force Telus to stop blocking these sites and although the proposal attempts to ease these concerns by saying the “system would have extensive checks and balances”, one has to wonder why members of this “trustworthy” group would refuse to air advertisements on this issue from Openmedia and use other tactics like that discovered by blogger Michael Geist.
Do we really want these people to block legal content that happens to be on servers where pirated recordings can be found? Can we be guarantied prompt responses to sites that were unduly blocked? And how exactly would they address the use of Virtual Private Networks, that can used to bypass blocking? Will they claim those services facilitate piracy, blocking them with no real consideration to their legitimate use?
In 2016 legal music streaming profits in Canada went up a whopping 144.9% and legal music downloads remain one of the primary sources of music for Canadians according to Music Canada. And the Nielsen Music 360 survey and BuzzAngle Music confirmed more Canadians are using these legal services in 2017 so people are clearly being lured away from the illegal services this proposal attempts to address.
The use of smartphones to stream music grew in this country according to a September 2017 report issued by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (PDF) ; From 40% in 2016 to 52% in 2017. And Netflix and other streaming services have successfully convinced many would be pirates to use their services instead so why would we need to open this pandora’s box?
Blocking sites will in no way cause recording artists to gain more royalties from the legal streaming services and address what Music Canada calls “The Value Gap“. And the premise of forcing people to attend hearings to keep their sites available to the public is absurd.
Most CRTC hearings are held in Gatineau, Quebec yet the proposal does not discuss where these other hearings might happen or if legal recourses would be made available to those who were forced to incur costs to defend themselves from false accusations. I guess we’re all supposed to subscribe to false dilemmas and presume everything will work out fine.
If you would like to file an intervention with the CRTC, you can do so by clicking here by 8pm Eastern, March 29th, 2018.
Be Careful !
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has issued a warning in regards to fake invoices being distributed by email.
These emails look legit but actually contain links to websites that install malware on computers or solicit additional information that could be used to defraud individual consumers.
If you ever receive an email saying a suspicious purchase was made on your behalf do not click on any of the links on this email. Access the retailer’s official web site via your browser instead.