What Bill C-10 is really about.

The letter to the editor I sent to the Hill times was too long, so Kate Malloy (Editor) did her magic and published:

• We need to move ‘broadcasting’ and ‘copyright’ from Canadian Heritage, to Innovation, Science and Economic Development: McOrmond

 

The following is the unedited version with hyperlinks added.

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I've been active in related areas of policy since the 1990's, so have watched the damage caused by the Department of Canadian Heritage (created in 1993 and given royal assent in 1995). This is a department whose Minister was granted jurisdiction over "Canadian identity and values, cultural development, heritage and areas of natural or historical significance to the nation" (from 4(1) of An Act to establish the Department of Canadian Heritage).

• Department of Canadian Heritage Act (S.C. 1995, c. 11)
  

The departmental mandate includes Official Colonial Languages. Given what I have finally learned since the start of 2020 about what the Governments of Canada continue to do to the Indigenous peoples of this homeland, this mandate has a very different meaning for me than it did previously.

• Brief to The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, for the study of the Subject Matter of Bill C-15
  

Two areas of technology law where that mandate is in conflict are Copyright and Broadcasting, but these were incorrectly included in 4(2) of the Act. These are areas of policy that should always have been the jurisdiction of the department currently called Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), as transferred from the previous Department of Communications.

Sheila Copps set the tone as the first Minister of Canadian Heritage from 1996 through 2003. I met (and debated with her) in the context of Copyright law several times.


Ms. Copps saw intermediaries, such as broadcasters and collective societies, as proxies for creators. When discussing the 1996 WIPO treaties, and technological protection measures, she saw technology companies as one of those proxies. She believed that what was good for Apple, Amazon, Sony, Microsoft and Google would somehow be good for Canadian creators. It shouldn't be lost that the same Heritage thinkers claim to be so concerned with "Big Tech" given it was their flawed thinking which helped create that problem in the first place.

Ms. Copps and her Department of Canadian Heritage helped create a situation between Canadian creators and technology intermediaries that is not unlike Stockholm syndrome.

When the government of the day wouldn't provide an adequate budget for stable arts funding, Ms. Copps would create unaccountable and corrupt cross-subsidy schemes through the CRTC (Cable Production Fund, Canadian Television Fund, Canadian New Media Fund, Canadian Media Fund) and Copyright Board (Private Copying Levy, Access Copyright educational copying, and other compulsory or near-compulsory cross-subsidy schemes).

As technology changes, the department pushes to shift these cross-subsidy schemes into new sectors rather than finally recognizing the schemes were wrong from the beginning.


Once the tone was set, every Heritage minister since, Conservative or Liberal, and every Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC), has followed her lead.

When I was very active in copyright with what a decade later was passed in 2012 as Bill C-11, I would closely follow what was said from MPs from the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) committee and those from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC). It was my observation, including from meeting MPs in person, that the difference in views between an MP on INDU vs CHPC was far greater than the difference in views between a Conservative and NDP MP in the same committee.

During the 2019 review of the Copyright Act, INDU was forced to put out a press release reprimanding the CHPC for what for many people was yet another report from CHPC which read as if it were written by corporate lobbyists rather than a committee pretending to be concerned with the public interest.

• News release from the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology: On Shifting Paradigms
  

The same is regularly said of the CRTC, which largely acts as a lobbyist for specific corporations rather than regulating in the public interest.


So, what is Bill C-10 really about?

• C-10: An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts
  

In clause 1 it redefines "broadcasting" to include activities not related to broadcasting in order to yank jurisdiction away from ISED (INDU committee, and agencies such as the competition bureau, privacy commissioner, etc) toward Heritage and the CRTC.

It really is that simple. There is further discussion of cross-subsidy and other schemes, and some pennies to Indigenous languages and content to distract from the Heritage department's primary colonial mandate, but the core of the bill is a corrupt power grab between government departments and agencies.

While the Internet needs to be regulated, that regulation must be via a department and ministry, studied by a parliamentary committee, and managed by regulators that are looking at these issues from a lens that is the opposite of what Heritage and CRTC will offer.

• We need to remove "Broadcasting" and "Copyright" from the Department of Canadian Heritage, and move those areas of policy to ISED where they always should have been. Only then should the policy in Bill C-10 be revisited with the appropriate lens.
• We need to properly fund and empower the Competition Bureau, Privacy Commissioner, Consumer Affairs, and related agencies to handle a growing number of Internet issues.
• We need to complete the digital transition, not continue to regulate digital technology as if it were still analog. (See letter from March 1, 2021, copied below)
• We (including fellow creators) need more choice and competition in content distribution technologies, not less via central control.
• We need to disallow content distribution intermediaries from controlling technology which they don't own, such as was allowed/enforced in "Copyright" under "technological protection measures".
• We need creators to have more control over their own content distribution to maximize the benefits for themselves, rather than continuing to allow intermediaries to extract maximum benefits off the backs of creators.
• We need to empower audiences to make their own choices of what creativity they access. While we need to regulate situations where the sender is the content programmer (as was the case with analog-era broadcasting), we should never be regulating scenarios such as on-demand content libraries where it is the audience doing their own programming. (Discoverability is a Competition policy issue, not a Cultural policy issue)
• We must end unaccountable cross-subsidy schemes, especially never extracting money from services deemed essential during the pandemic to sectors which were not.
  

Russell McOrmond
Ottawa, Ont.
(The letter-writer is an internet consultant.)

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Feds should complete digital transition as part of its response to COVID

March 1, 2021


Re: “Bell Canada’s cuts were a shoddy way to treat people,” (The Hill Times, Feb. 10, by Andrew Caddell). I would like to point policy-makers to my May 2020 submission to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. In it, I suggested that the government complete the digital transition as part of its response to COVID.

The summary is that the pandemic demonstrated that communications infrastructure is an essential service. While having vertical integration was required by analog technology given you couldn’t put both telephone and television signals on the same wires, this is no longer the case with digital technology.

With digital technology the obvious way to manage the physical layer within municipalities is as a utility, where municipalities own and manage the infrastructure as they do with all other infrastructure. A competitive private sector can then offer services “over the top,” as happens with other infrastructure including roads. With an actual digital transition, we no longer need to have an exception for this communications utility.

While Bell Canada was necessary when we needed a dedicated analog telephone system, this time is long past. Any laws granting analog-era, private-sector privileges to right-of-way or wireless spectrum, including the Bell Canada Act, should be phased out as part of completing the digital transition.

• INDU Study: Canadian Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Direct link to PDF of my brief.
• Text published on this blog: My telecommunications focused brief to INDU for Canadian response to COVID-19 pandemic
  

Russell McOrmond
Ottawa, Ont.
(The letter-writer is an internet consultant.)

Heritage Minister and Committee misunderstand the purpose of the Broadcasting Act.

The text of Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, didn't surprise me. It is only the latest example of a Heritage Minister and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage misunderstanding their mandate and the purpose of various laws.  The problem isn't specific to any political party, as Heritage Ministers from the Liberals or Conservatives, and Heritage Committee members from all parties, have all exhibited the same problems. I'm just going to use the term "Heritage" to refer to this group.

The Conflict of Interest

A big part of what the Department of Canadian Heritage does is provide funding to creative Canadians -- arts funding, entertainment funding, and funding for heritage projects (including libraries and archives).  The Heritage Minister and Committee are intended to direct that department, so will also have a focus on that funding.

But, for a variety of reasons, the cabinet doesn't provide adequate funding in the budget for the department.  So, Heritage looks elsewhere to try to provide funding. They have unfortunately grabbed onto the false premise that if they modify legislation that grants intermediaries between creators and their audiences more power, then magically creators will get paid more.

I first noticed this flawed notion with Copyright, where the livelihoods of fellow creators are being harmed by Heritage policies which increase the power of the intermediaries at the expense of creators. The first example I noticed was legal protection for technological measures which empowers technology companies at the expense of creators -- This is companies like Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Netflix -- the "Big Tech" companies Heritage now claims it has a problem with.  The alleged "problem" which Heritage has with these companies is that they have become too powerful and can control what creative works Canadians can access. This is of course the predicted outcome of legal protection for technological measures, a policy which Heritage pushed hard to put in place.

I have seen the same problem with discussing broadcasting and the Broadcasting Act, with the theory being that if Broadcasters are given more control over the Canadian communications landscape that somehow creators will get paid more.

The reality has always been that these intermediaries are the entities that limit the livelihoods of creators, and the purpose of these various pieces of legislation should be to limit the control that these intermediaries have.

Fixing the conflict of interest

The Department of Canadian Heritage was only created in 1994 by Kim Campbell in her few months as PM.  This was a time when Canadian policy makers should have been aware of the upcoming digital transition and been focused on the regulatory benefits of a decentralized digital communications system.  It might be time to question whether the current structure of the department makes sense, or ever made sense, as a way to get Canada out of the current conflict of interest situation.

It seems obvious that the regulation of broadcasters should be considered a specific subset of competition policy, and considered under the department currently called Innovation, Science and Economic Development.  The Copyright Act already lists the Minister of Industry as the relevant minister, and the influence of Heritage over Copyright should be revoked. Digital radiocommunications should not be managed by entities also involved in content distribution, and with that policy clarification radiocommunications no longer needs to have any involvement by Heritage.

What is the purpose of the Broadcasting Act

What should be obvious is that the purpose of the Broadcasting Act is to regulate broadcasters.  Broadcasters have specific control over what Canadians can hear and see, and thus they need to be regulated to reduce the harm that this control can cause.

• Broadcast programmers set what content is seen at what time. Broadcast listening and viewing has prime-times when audiences are maximized, and the ability to control what is seen then offers considerable power.
  
  
• The technology needed for Broadcasting was expensive, so there were very few broadcasters.  This also granted additional power.
  
  
• Broadcasters were granted a monopoly from the programming, through transmission equipment, to a monopoly on a frequency (part of spectrum) that only they were allowed to use.
  
  
• Broadcasters are private businesses and want to maximize profit. One way they did this was to purchase US programming (which had larger audiences, and thus bulk purchasing pricing) over Canadian programming (which historically tended to have a more narrow audience focus).

 

All of these factors and more created a need to regulate broadcasters.  It is, however, the unique features of broadcasting that require this regulation and not the generic concept of "content distribution".

 

As an example, with the invention of record players, cassette tapes, VHS, CDs and eventually DVD's, a mechanism to distribute content separate from broadcasting was available.  This music, movies, television and other content was made available in retail stores and libraries, offered for rent, and distributed over roads (trucks, cars, etc).  At no time did Heritage claim that because content was being distributed that they needed to regulate retailers or the road system.

Then along came the digital transition (See: Hiding OSI layers leading to policy failures: Net Neutrality, Encrypted Media, ... ). Digital technology allows us to break up much of the monopoly control which broadcasters have, which means less of a need to regulate entities which don't have the harmful features of broadcasting.

• On-demand services allow Canadian audiences to become their own content programmer.  This is analogous to a library (some private, some public), and not remotely similar to a broadcaster. No longer is some programmer in a corporate HQ allowed to dictate to audiences what they can see or when.
  
  The notion in C-10 that broadcasting should be redefined to include "on demand" makes about as much sense as having a bill that says that the mathematical constant pi (π) should be considered to be 3 or 7 because some parliamentarians want to claim it is.  It is a nonsense concept that creates unnecessary terminology confusion as well as being contrary to the purpose of the Broadcasting Act.
  
  
• Creating and distributing content to wide audiences is no longer expensive because of digital technology, enabling competition where government regulations allow.
  
  It is now the case that rather than regulating broadcasters because having a few granted them too much control, governments are now regulating non-broadcasters apparently to seek to limit who can communicate.  Instead of regulating problems away, they are regulating problems into existence.
  
  
• Digital communication allows for OSI layers to be split into separate entities.  The physical connections within municipalities can be managed by municipalities, and so-on.  This means that the monopolies no longer exist, as the entities which right-of-way or spectrum granted (now municipalities) are not the same entities which are creating content catalogues or funding content creation.  It is the hardware layers of the OSI stack, preferably managed by municipalities, that are carrying out activities related to "radiocommunication" and not anyone carrying out activities at other layers.
  
  Unfortunately the government is still regulating digital communications as if it has the limitations of analog, allowing broadcasting entities to also claim control of the communications infrastructure into our homes, and deliberately replicating all the problems from the historical analog technology world in the digital world.
  
  
• This last problem is also partly solved by the competition enabled by digital.  Audiences who want to see more Canadian content, can get more Canadian content.
  
  In my case my focus is to avoid US centric content, as I really enjoy the International programming on Netflix, and the true domestic (rather than British descendant) content on APTN Lumi and related channels on YouTube and podcasts.  Arts and Entertainment funding should be going to Canadian creators and never intermediaries like broadcasters.  These intermediaries should be thought of as merely "the hired help" for creators and their audiences, and regulation should be intended to revoke intermediary control and never grant it.

To try to regulate non-broadcasting as if it were broadcasting is to try to create a lowest-common-denominator of the harm that broadcasting causes.  This does not create a "level playing field" as broadcasters claim, but only promotes the special interests of those broadcasters against much needed competition.

If Heritage wanted creators to get paid better it would be actively seeking to revoke the control that broadcasting had over creators.  They would do that by strongly regulating broadcasting, and deliberately enabling and promoting non-broadcasting to eventually replace broadcasting entirely as a concept within Canada.  While live-events will still be simulcast, that feature is available from most non-broadcasters and doesn't require that a narrow set of broadcasters control Canadian media.

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Side note...

I am happy to see the mention of aboriginal peoples and cultures mentioned in Canadian legislation.  In this case it is too little too late, as broadcasting as a concept isn't something Canada should be promoting as the centrally controlled (and primarily by white men) nature of broadcasting has been a tool used to filter aboriginal peoples and stories from Canadian audiences.

Arts and cultural grants, and not the broadcasting or copyright act, is where these changes need to be made. I look forward to increased and stable public funding of indigenous arts and entertainment!

My thoughts on the 2020 Speech from the colonial Throne

This afternoon, on unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory currently the subject of treaty negotiation, a British colonial ceremony was held. With parliament only retaining British tradition, we were reminded by a "speech from the throne" that to this day the settler-state doesn't fully recognize the two groups who make up Canada: European colonialists/settlers and the peoples who had already been here for thousands of years.

As I read the text of the Speech from the Throne I noticed a few themes. I could easily put them under an overall headline of the continuation of narrowly harnessing European world views to attempt to further public policy goals.

• A  romanticization of over 150 years of the members of our European settler-state parliament dealing with challenges, with no recognition or harnessing of the experiences of the peoples who were already here for thousands of years.
• The continuation of the European entitlements vs responsibility world view around rights, which generate the wealth and power inequality at the heart of the gaps in social responsibility.
  
• A continuation of creating excessively large centralized entities which then need excessively large government regulatory and police interventions, rather than enacting policy to decentralize.

 

The speech properly recognized that we are in a series of crises, including not only COVID-19 but also climate change. There is also a crisis of legitimacy, where more Canadians are questioning the status-quo of how government has been operating.

Solving these problems requires far more change than postponing travel plans.  I believe it will require re-evaluating our world views, including abandoning the entitlement concept which allows individuals and groups to exploit resources (land, animals, people or ideas) to extract private benefit without any responsibility.  We need to think of rights as responsibilities we have to each other, not as entitlements we take from everyone and everything else.

 

Systemic racism is mentioned, but only in the unfortunately common "white" way of incorrectly believing that systemic racism relates to systems which include individual racists.  Systemic racism relates to the norms and practices within society or an organization. Good individuals can participate in systemic racism, as it is not about individual attitudes.

One large class of examples is the use of police forces as a top-down mechanism to ensure conformity to policies that deliberately avoid discussing the roots of the disputes that armed officers are thrown into. Those who are talking about defunding or abolishing the police are discussing changing our focus to solving societal problems at their roots.  This is not limited to the "war on drugs" or "war on mental illness", but many other government policy manufactured armed conflicts.

While claiming to recognize that Black Canadians and Indigenous Peoples are over-represented in the criminal justice system, the government had already stated it believed that criminal code amendments were needed for those who neglect seniors.  It is Canadian society, including the federal and provincial governments, that are neglecting seniors and yet through a "white" lens the solution is always seen to narrowly focus on criminalizing individuals.

I feel there is a similar problem with bringing up that it is unacceptable that any citizen be arbitrarily detained in relation to Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The same is true of Meng Wanzhou being detained in Canada as a barely veiled part of trade and other disputes between the USA and China.

The RCMP has excessively close ties with a specific subset of foreign agencies and foreign political interests, and none of the above listed people would currently be detained if it were not for the hypocritical structural failures of the Canadian government.  The Five Eyes (FVEY) membership overlaps with the countries that opposed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States -- all British colonies, with the UK itself being the fifth member of FVEY). This should cause us to openly question what world views and values these agencies have in common.

The government can claim in a speech that this is something for which all Canadians stand united, but that doesn't make it true.

The backward-facing discussion of "Web giants" is another example of the government trying to hide its own policy failures.  Our communications infrastructure involves government granted monopolies in the form of right-of-way for physical wired infrastructure and spectrum allocation for wireless.  Phone companies were created by provincial and federal governments, and cable companies via municipal monopolies.  While this infrastructure exists as a matter of government policy, private interests were allowed to buy up all these monopolies such that only a handful of private sector companies claim exclusivity over most of the right-of-way and spectrum.  These companies then also bought most Canadian media that would be communicated over those wires and wireless, including television stations, radio stations and newspapers. (Note: Given their lobbying record, I consider CBC to be a Bell partner and not a public service)

When companies involved in physical entertainment distribution (Book/tape/CD/DVD sellers including Amazon, DVD rental by mail including Netflix) wanted to move existing distribution online, they were blocked by these vertically integrated monopolists. When possible Canadian online competitors to cable were formed, the monopolists blocked it (convincing parliament to pass targeted legislation against already existing iCraveTV and JumpTV). The same was true even of companies that offered search engine services that could be paid by advertising. These companies that could not get big enough were forced out of existence, and those who did were forced to move into the media creation and/or distribution business in order to be allowed to exist at all in a policy world controlled by analog-era media monopolists.

So the "Web giants" are a result of failed government policy around phone and cable companies, and compounding these failures can't possibly solve anything.

I have come to believe that the only solution to this problem is structural separation. The monopolies, whether for right-of-way or spectrum, should be returned to municipalities and managed as a utility in the same way as all other critical infrastructure is.  All over-the-top (OTT) services, including two-way voice (phone) and one-way simultaneous video (cable/etc), would compete on a level playing field and no longer be legally allowed to leverage government granted monopolies.

Taxing new media to perpetuate problems caused by old-media monopolists will only make existing problems worse. This will only increase the cost of those services for Canadians, when those services are providing far better value than the old-media monopolists.

Shitts Creek was able to break the Emmy's record for the most wins of a single reason of a comedy only after it was able to break free of CBC and get wider distribution internationally on services such as Netflix. While we should be providing more stable funding to Canadian production through accountable government subsidies (not anti-competitive old-media entitlements), that money and any other subsidies should be moved entirely away from legacy OTT media companies (broadcasters, and BDU's like cable companies).

Having a "Universal Broadband Fund" is also counterproductive when that money is handed over to old-media monopolists.  Necessary government support from the provincial and federal level should only be to municipalities building their own municipal infrastructure, and never to continue the harm of allowing private-sector monopolists to gain unaccountable control over that infrastructure.  It is the local communities, through their municipalities, that should be setting infrastructure priorities and not those priorities being set in the boardroom of some distant private sector monopolist.

I was happy to hear a renewed commitment to reverse almost a hundred years of Canada's opposition to the policies that became the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada needs to abandon its colonial period, and no longer side with Australia, New Zealand and United States as settler colonies of the United Kingdom.  We should instead be moving forward with decolonisation in order to become a republic. As a settler Canadian I do not support the continued implication that Canada was formed only by two sets of European colonists (French and English), and that these Europeans took over this land through conquest rather than being honorable with our existing treaty partners and within ongoing treaty negotiations.

Here's how to (legally) watch Game of Thrones live in Canada

On April 12, 2019, Chandler Walter wrote Here's how to (legally) watch Game of Thrones live in Canada.

I've not been shy over the years stating that I believe that Bell Canada is the largest contributory copyright infringer in Canada.  By blocking or making extremely inconvenient legal options for accessing streaming content in Canada, Bell's business practices have induced far more infringement than ISOHunt or any other the other alleged copyright villains ever have. You can abuse exclusive licenses to force audiences back in time to legacy cable television, or you can provide people legitimate options to pay for streaming content, but you can't do both.

This final season is the first year I'll be watching Game of Thrones when it is released, as this is the first year that Bell Canada has allowed Canadians to do so legally.  While Bell's Crave streaming service is inferior to all of the digital native streaming services like Netflix, Google YouTube/Play, or Amazon Prime video, it is at least legal streaming of content that Bell and it's analog-media partners have otherwise been blocking.

This year I gave up trying to watch the Arrow-verse (Arrow, Flash, Legends, Supergirl) as it is released, as I got tired of fighting with Canadian broadcasters.  While this is great scripted television made in Vancouver, I'll  wait until these show are available on digital native services.

While in the past it was legitimate to say "content is king", in the digital era of abundance this is now "convenience is king".  If Canadian producers want to have viewers and get paid, they need to make things convenient for people to access and pay.  Given how long they wish to delay the inevitable, that means not offering exclusive licensing deals to analog-era broadcasters or BDUs (cable companies).

Imperialism of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Whether it is SNC-Lavalin, CGI Inc, BCE Inc. (which owns Bell Canada) , or CBC, there is always a lot of flag-waving from lobbiests and defenders when these corporation are doing or saying things that corporations with different addresses of their headquarters would never get away with.

CBC President Catherine Tait's attempt to flag-wave recently went as far as to claim digital native companies were imperalists.

The problem with her analogy is that when it comes to post-convergence digital communications policy, it is representatives of analog-era companies like the CBC that are the foreign entities. Protecting the interests of Canadians from this imperalism is why I have called for a shift of funding away from the CBC to Canadian creators.


We need to put the policies which the CBC and Bell promote in a proper context.

Taxing Internet connectivity, or digital media distribution companies, to subsidize analog-era broadcasting is about as legitimate as putting a tax on salt in India.  While it is obvious why the foreign interests want natives to subsidize them, it should be recognized immediately as wrong.

Modern media distribution companies like Amazon and Netflix started with distribution of physical media: books in the case of Amazon (quickly moving to digital distribution with CD's and DVDs), and DVD's in the case of Netflix.  At that point nobody suggested that these content distribution companies should be subject to broadcast policy.  It is still the case that nobody suggests that Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, or the hundreds of other companies involved in the distribution of digital content on physical media should be thought of as if they had anything in common with broadcasters.

As these digital native content distributors added online distribution to their offerings, nothing changed that has anything to do with broadcasting and yet the analog-era broadcasters have been on the offensieve against digital natives for as long as Internet bandwidth has been sufficient to stream video.

You might ask why we haven't had digital native companies that are also headquartered in Canada.  To understand why this hasn't happened you only need to look at decades of successful flag-waving misdirection campaigns from the analog-era broadcasters and BDUs (cable/satellite/etc companies).  In 2002 they convinced parliament to pass a bill that would disallow a "new media retransmitter" the same exceptions to copyright which enable analog-era cable companies to exist.  If  iCraveTV and JumpTV had instead been appropriately embraced as the innovators that Canada desprarately needed, we would have had domestic new media companies long before Netflix launched in 2008.  Other than the additional bandwidth that currently exists today, what iCraveTV and JumpTV attempted to offer with their IPTV service wasn't technologically different to Bell Fibe TV.  What was different is that Bell is constantly able to get away with activities which would be considered illegal if other companies did it.


When Bell and the CBC make any complaints about Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Google (Play/YouTube) in Canada, we need to remember that it was the imperalist lobbying from Bell and CBC which blocked Canadian digital native companies from forming.   If we are to facilitate Canadian companies in this marketplace we need to provide assurances and incentives to protect digital natives from the imperalist broadcasters and BDUs.

I can only hope that blindly protecting the activities of Bell and CBC will eventually be as politically toxic as blindly protecting SNC-Lavalin has become.

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Addendum:
Feels like Timothy Denton's Blog is relevant.

There appears to be an SNC-Lavalin-style relationship of telcos to government that needs further exploring and, if necessary, expunging.

Re: Bell Media and BBC Worldwide North America Sign Exclusive Multi-Platform Deal for DOCTOR WHO

The following was sent to the contacts listed on the Bell Media press release from 2016.

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Ever since this deal it has been harder to legally stream Doctor Who in Canada. While space.ca previously offered episodes, it is now locked down and requires login via a legacy cable package. While Crave is mentioned for previous seasons after they were taken off of Netflix, a Crave subscription (even the add-on package) doesn't enable legal streaming of new episodes.

Bell finally folded HBO Canada into Crave to make that content available for legal streaming, and clearly it needs to do the same with SPACE rather than driving people away from legal streaming options.


I have been paying for the full seasons of Doctor Who through Google Play. Episodes are often late and in the case of the latest episode from New Years it didn't show up at all. I found the Google Play option on my own, and Space has been unwilling to even disclose this legal streaming option when asked multiple times. All legal options for Canadians should be advertised clearly on the space.ca website!


With the exclusive license comes a responsibility for Bell to protect Doctor Who copyright in Canada. You have been doing a horrible job and have been inducing infringement.


See also: https://mcormond.blogspot.com/2016/10/bell-has-no-class.html

Intervention in opposition of the Bell Coalition's "Fairplay" site blocking proposal.

I have made an intervention to the CRTC in opposition to FairPlay Canada's so-called "application to disable on-line access to piracy sites".

Summary

While is is appropriate for the courts to be able to require Internet Service Providers to block access to specific “sites”, it is inappropriate for vertically integrated media distributors to be allowed to do this without a court order. These media distributors are in a conflict of interest when it comes to providing lawful online distribution of media, and their business models are known to induce copyright infringement.

Given this conflict we should not only be demanding that court oversight exist prior to blocking, and not as an expensive appeal process, but that government and regulators need to reduce rather than increase the influence of broadcasters and BDUs over Canada’s digital communications networks.

Read more:

• Tweet informing Fairplay of my intervention, as requested by the CRTC. Re-tweet if you agree with my submission.
• Google Doc (which allows users to download alternate formats, including PDF)
• CRTC website (which includes the PDF)

Yes, CBC, I'm waiting for Alias Grace to be on Netflix.

CBC runs InCanada, an "online" Canadian Media Panel. I put "online" in quotations because while the panel is online, the CBC's broadcaster bias is always visible in how they ask questions. The latest survey is no exception.

The survey was essentially about Alias Grace, a Canadian-American miniseries that will air on CBC on September 25, 2017, and on Netflix on November 3, 2017.

The survey typically conflates Netflix with broadcasters, when Netflix is not a broadcaster. This is about as nonsensical as confusing a radio station with a record store when discussing music, and yet the legacy broadcasters continue to try to push this nonsense.

I sometimes make the comparison to the difference between an outhouse and indoor plumbing: Like broadcasting, people made use of outhouses before modern conveniences like indoor plumbing came along. And like indoor plumbing, people aren't likely to want to go backwards once they get used to online streaming.

While outhouses still exist in places where indoor plumbing is not available, it is not the predominant way that people "do their business". Unlike with an outhouse, there is no sense of urgency to use the outmoded platform to watch Alias Grace.


The survey asked if I saw the American series The Handmaid's Tale (TV series). While this was distributed by Hulu starting in April 2017, the series was blocked from Canadian access by Bell until they made it available on CraveTV in late July. Bell blocking, hiding and/or delaying lawful access to content is typical, and I consider them to be the largest Canadian contributory copyright infringer for their ongoing inducement of infringement.


If the NAFTA negotiations were intended to modernize trade relations within North America, the trade barriers disallowing cross-boarder shopping for telecommunications services and creative content would be a top priority. I believe we could massively reduce copyright infringement in North America if we moved to a single content market, where creators from the entire of North America had unrestricted access to the audiences of North America. That includes the content distribution services. North American audiences should also have the right to subscribe to any North American streaming service, and regional content restrictions within North America would be prohibited.

The concept of Canadians not being to view content at the same time as US audiences, including having the option to subscribe to the same online distribution services, must quickly become a distant memory.


Canadian Content policy should be focused on content, not on outdated distribution mechanisms. Hopefully a pro-free trade agenda will be part of the current Heritage Minister's thinking: you can't promote Canadian production capabilities and wide global distribution of Canadian content while still allowing regional content blocking.


Bell's anti-free trade agenda is trying to push policy in the opposite direction, including asking for mandated blocking when Canadians wish to access content that is not lawfully streamed in Canada. Bell is asking for mandated blocking because they want competitors to have to block the same competing distribution sites Bell already wants to block, which is also why they oppose VPNs (Apparently the technology, not only the perfectly legitimate cross-boarder-shopping use).

If I wanted to watch The Handmaid's Tale when US viewers were (or those that can tolerate the smell of an outhouse/broadcaster), or on the devices of my choosing, I would be forced to infringe copyright (easiest) or use a VPN (Less convenient, but currently more lawful).

There was no sense of urgency to watch The Handmaid's Tale. While there are shows that are important enough to me that would warrant finding alternative streaming options, none of these TV series based on Margaret Atwood novels are of sufficient interest.


My wife and I watched Handmaid's Tale on CraveTV. CraveTV is a horrible streaming service: there is a difference between the indoor plumbing at a 5-star hotel and an out-of-the-way truck stop. We only watch programming on CraveTV when it is not available anywhere else. The CraveTV Android App crashes fairly regularly. CraveTV works on few of my devices, compared to Netflix which pretty much always works -- and Netflix even has a simple app built into the SmartTV such that my wife and in-laws can also use it (CraveTV is too messy for less technical people to put up with).


While CBC isn't as bad as Bell when it comes to policies, I believe their outdated broadcaster-era thinking is harmful to Canadian creators and taxpayers.

Space (Bell) has no Class when it comes to protecting copyright

To say I am a fan of the Doctor Who universe would be an understatement.

I've been watching since childhood.  In preparation of the 50th anniversary in November 2013 I did a re-watch of every episode since 1963.  I purchased the DVD of every story available in DVD format, listened to the soundtrack for those where video has been lost, and  in one case listened to the audio book of the novelization.  I have all the DVD's for spin-offs Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, many CD's of audiobooks and soundtracks, and am a subscriber to many audio play series via Big Finish (Doctor Who main range pre-paid through to October 2019).  I even get a daily briefing from Doctor Who News sent to my email.

I heard the rumors, read the announcements, watched the trailers and interviews, and was eagerly anticipating the launch of spin-off Class. While I would prefer to have watched Saturday when the first episodes were released, I've become familiar with having to wait until the next day to stream from Space.ca which is where the BBC points fans from their Class website.  When all I could see from the Space show page for Class last night was rave reviews and a trailer, I started to look for details.

On the Facebook page for Space a representative wrote the following when asked about streaming options.

Space Unfortunately, episodes of Class will not be available on space.ca. If you are a Bell, Rogers or Telus customer, you can watch past episodes OnDemand now!

I've asked on Twitter, hoping to get a more relevant response:

. @SpaceChannel @bbcclass How do you legally stream in Canada? I can't find it on the space.ca site or the SPACE GO app..

— Russell McOrmond (@russellmcormond) October 24, 2016

The infuriating "reply" I received was:

@russellmcormond Episodes of Class are not available on space.ca. If you are a Bell, Rogers or Telus customer, you can watch OnDemand now.

— Space (@SpaceChannel) October 25, 2016

Cable vs Streaming

Streaming is a replacement for cable in the same way that automobiles were a replacement for horse drawn carriages and indoor plumbing was a replacement for outhouses.  It is a one-way modernization that once someone makes the transition they will not be interested in going backwards.

Telling people to "sit down, shut up, and get a cable package" whenever fans ask for legal streaming options doesn't drive them to cable.   For those who have modernized away from cable television they have a few options for the programming they want to watch.

• Legal streaming/download options
• Later release on DVD or second-run streaming services like CraveTV
• Don't watch the show
• Unauthorized/illegal streaming/download options

Did I mention I was a big fan of the Doctor Who universe?  Not watching the show or waiting months for the DVD release (or possibly even longer for it to eventually show up on poor services like CraveTV) are not options I'm willing to tolerate for this show.

This leaves me with only two options:

• Legal streaming/download options
• Unauthorized/illegal streaming/download options

I find infringing Doctor Who related copyright offensive

I am an author of software and non-software copyrighted works, so understand the importance of respecting author rights.  I spent more than a decade active with the copyright revision process (including hosting digital-copyright.ca) trying to protect the rights of independent creators like myself.

More than that, I am a fan of the Doctor Who universe and wish it to continue for another 50 years -- well beyond how long I'll be on this planet.

This is why I find what Space (Bell) is doing so offensive.  Rather than informing fans of legal streaming/download options they are driving them to unauthorized/illegal streaming/download options.  In this Bell is not the victim, but the perpetrator of contributory copyright infringement.

Lobbiests from intermediaries like Bell and their subsidiaries like Space, HBO Canada and CTV lobbied the government heavily during the last copyright revision process to get more power for them to blame fans for infringement these companies are causing.  They mutated the "inducement" concept where those like Bell who induced infringement would be liable for contributory infringement to a quite different "enablement" where only those who enable unauthorized access are liable.

The claim was the worst contributory copyright infringers in Canada were entities like ISOHunt, when I have always believed that dishonor belonged to Bell and similar companies like Roger, Telus and their subsidiaries.

In the ministerial briefing documents for the new Minister of Heritage Honourable Mélanie Joly included discussion of blocking the use of VPN's to bypass region restrictions to otherwise legally access content.  This blocking only increases infringement, and if anything Canadians should be assisted in cross-border shopping for content when Canadian distributors are blocking and/or hiding legal options.

The BBC should be forced to go after Bell, not Canadians

Copyright keeps coming up in the Canadian Content in a Digital World Consultations and Canada will be starting another round of copyright revision consultations soon.

One obvious suggestion to massively reduce copyright infringement in Canada is to have copyright holders, such as the BBC, be forced to pursue all business and legal avenues against contributory infringers like Bell before they are allowed to avail themselves of Canadian Copyright law against private citizens.  This should include our Notice and Notice system, so citizens are not harassed when they are induced to infringe by Canadian re-distributors.

On February 23, 2016 Bell Media and BBC Worldwide North America announced a multi-platform exclusive agreement. I first became aware of the agreement when past seasons of Doctor Who were announced to be removed from Netflix Canada starting on September 15.  Essentially, Bell is removing legal streaming options for fans of the Doctor Who Universe, forcing services like Netflix to block lawful cross-border shopping for content, and is refusing to advertise legal alternatives.

Clearly Bell is not a partner to BBC that is doing what it can to protect BBC's copyright in Canada, but the perpetrator of contributory infringement.  If BBC wishes to protect its copyright in Canada it should amend its agreement with Bell to demand they offer and advertise legal streaming options.  If Bell isn't willing to fix this problem, BBC should revoke their exclusive license and offer non-exclusive licensing to non-infringers.

Bell is hiding legal options

Space is not the only subsidiary of Bell which is the exclusive distributor of popular content where fans will gain access to unauthorized alternatives when legal options aren't made available or known to them.

While less than Doctor Who, I am also a fan of Game of Thrones which is distributed by HBO Canada. HBO Canada is also owned by Bell.  I have waited months (nearly a full year for some seasons) to watch GoT when the DVD was finally released because I was told that Game of Thrones wasn't available for legal streaming in Canada.  I was shocked to learn this weekend that GoT was available for legal streaming in Canada, only hidden by HBO Canada/Bell.

There was even a series of articles on the CBC talking about how "upset" Bell was claiming to be that people were going to unauthorized streaming sites.  They claimed to be upset people were cross-border shopping and accessing legally in the USA from HBO GO using VPNs, and upset that people were going to infringing sites.  In none of the interviews of Bell representatives were legal streaming options mentioned that were not tied to a cable package.

Given I was shocked to learn that HBO Canada is offering many HBO programs, including GoT, on Google Play, I thought to look for Class. It is available, with a "More from Space" on the page listing other Space programming available for legal streaming/download (Supernatural, Doctor Who, Orphan Black, Being Human).

I paid $17.99 ($2.49 per episode, $23.99HD or $17.99SD), and last night watched the first two episodes.  This is one of those services where new episodes are delivered to me as they are released weekly.

You would have to purchase more full seasons this way than I have time to watch in order to compare to going backward in time and getting a useless cable package.  This is especially true when added to a Netflix subscription.

Why was this not mentioned on the Space.ca website?  Like Bell's HBO Canada website, Space has an obligation to HBO, BBC and fans to inform Canadians about all legal options, with all legal streaming options being prominently listed on the official Canadian website being a minimum.


It seems obvious to me that Bell, as a BDU and owner of broadcasters, is in a conflict of interest when it comes to the legal distribution in Canada of copyrighted works.  They are far more interested in trying to abuse BBC and HBO's popular titles to protect their cable business than they are in protecting BBC or HBO copyright or maximizing revenue streams for their partners.

It is long past time for HBO, BBC, and other copyright holders to go after Bell and their subsidiaries and demand change.  If Bell continues to disrespect creators rights then licensing should be revoked and offered to entities that have far more respect.

In the case of HBO and BBC they should be offering HBO GO and BBC iPlayer directly to Canadians, avoiding relying on dishonest Canadian re-distributors.

For copyright holders which don't have their own streaming service, and want to offer their content on a service based on fixed monthly fees for a wide variety of programming, Netflix has demonstrated it can do that well and protect the interests of creators.

I don't want to subsidize a contributory infringer

Given I don't think of Bell as a legitimate Canadian source of programming, but a contributory infringer of programming I'm a fan of, it is very hard for me to stomach being a customer.  Like paying money to a ransomeware scam artist, it repulses me to be financially rewarding bad behavior.

It was uncomfortable purchasing GoT and Class from Google Play knowing that Bell subsidiaries would be getting a cut.  It is disturbing to be a CraveTV customer, and I'm doing it mostly to be participating in government consultations and interacting with policy makers while having experience with the so-called "Canadian" brands the government seems to want to force on us.

There are few ways for me to offer feedback.  One thing I have done is refuse to get interested in shows which are produced by Bell.  One example, produced in association with BBC America and Bell Media's Space, is Orphan Black.

Orphan Black is shot on location in Toronto, and is promoted by many as "Canadian Content".  I find it embarrassing that "Canadian Content", especially in the SciFi/Fantasy area I'm most interested in, has become synonymous with a close association with one of Canada's contributory infringers.

While I know that Orphan Black is a show I would enjoy, I refuse to watch it because of its close association with Bell Media.

This is also why I don't want to see cross-subsidies where services such as Netflix or Google Play would be levied in order to allegedly "promote Canadian Content".  I don't for a second believe these levy systems, designed for the broadcast era, would be promoting Canadian content but subsidizing Canada's top contributory infringers as they block Canadian stories from being easily and legally accessed by Canadians.

Modernize Canadian Content policy

Canadian Content policy should return to its roots of ensuring that Canadians can access stories told by fellow Canadians.

The CanCon quota system was designed to protect audiences from intermediaries (broadcasters, etc) who were favoring cheaper foreign content over Canadian.

Any tax policies, including levies, should have a similar aim.  Intermediaries which are blocking Canadians accessing content of their choice -- including but not exclusively Canadian content -- should be prohibited and/or levied. Intermediaries which are promoting access to Canadian content (whether headquartered in Canada or elsewhere) should be subsidized. 

CanCon should not be treated as a form of unconditional welfare handout, all too often granted to wealthy intermediaries who already largely exist due to government largess.  CanCon should be public policy serving the interests of Canadian citizens and accountable to Canadian taxpayers.  Most Canadian taxpayers are audiences, and the policy should be focused on bringing audiences what we want -- including convenient access to new Canadian authored and produced content.

We must not expand an outdated broadcast-era policy which would tax/levy services like Netflix to subsidize companies like Bell and their subsidiaries. We should subsidize services like Netflix which make content conveniently and cheaply available to Canadians, and taxing/levying contributory infringing intermediaries like Bell which are trying to filter access.

#DigiCanCon Comments on @shomicanada @whoismrrobot @GooglePlay TV , @HBOCanada @GameOfThrones

I've been a happy Netflix customer since 2011, dropped cable TV in 2012, and frequently purchase DVD's of movies or seasons of scripted TV programming. This year I've reviewed CraveTV,  CTV GO and Showcase's website, and decided to subscribe to Shomi to do a review.

As with other services offered by broadcaster or BDUs (cable companies) I didn't expect to be happy with Shomi.

What I (and a growing percentage of the market) want is to be able to conveniently watch the shows I want, at a location I want, at a time of my choosing, on devices of my choosing, and at a reasonable price.

What the broadcast industry wants to offer is programming of their choosing, at a time of their choosing, on devices of their choosing, and at the maximum price they believe the market will bear.  The digital transition for cable was several steps backward from analog where subscribers could choose their own brand of tuners to digital where the tuner brand is imposed.  They are not offering services based on sound market analysis as they claim that if anyone doesn't want to purchase their products and services the only reason could be they are "pirates".  This scapegoat is blocking them from offering services that their potential customer base actually wants, and the more "copyright" talk that blames audiences that happens the less likely the market can ever mature.

Shomi

As far as content is concerned, Shomi is similar to CraveTV in that it is older scripted TV programming that was broadcast much earlier.  I scanned the catalog and didn't see anything I could recognize as current seasons.  CraveTV and Space TV are both owned by Bell, and I wouldn't be surprised if exclusive licensing by Bell blocked the Shomi Partnership from licensing a larger catalog of Sci-Fi and Fantasy scripted TV. That said, there would still be shows I would watch if Shomi were going to be around longer.

Technology

Shomi's technology is far more advanced than CraveTV.  Unlike CraveTV where the website can't cast to a Chromecast using a recent Chrome browser, Shomi had no problems streaming directly from the website.  I have also downloaded the Shomi for phone to my Nexus 4 and Shomi for tablet to my ASUS Flip chromebook, and it works well on both devices watching on-screen and casting to my TV.

HDMI CEC is supported by the Shomi Chromecast application.  This may seem like a minor feature, but it is very important.  It allows for pausing and resuming of programming using the TV's remote control.  This avoids having to get the device that initiated the show opened - screen blanked so I need to log in, and a good chance you have to battle the app to get the pause to work.  By then the phone call/etc is over and you need to fight the interface to rewind.

Shomi always seems to remember which episode of a series I was on, and unlike CraveTV doesn't require that I search for the series to choose a different episode. The "Shomi later" bookmarking and "Recently watched" listings work well and allow you to easily see which episodes you have seen and (re)watch whichever episode you want next.

Both the browse (by category) and collections (themed, not sure who the creators are) are a great way to discover other content on the site.

While Shomi isn't as advanced as Netflix and Google (YouTube and Google Play), the interface and technology is considerably more advanced than what Bell offers with CraveTV or other subsidiaries( CTV.ca, space.ca sites and CTV GO, SPACE GO apps).   In an ideal world it would be CraveTV/etc shutting down and all that content made available on the Shomi platform, but that isn't what is happening.  Maybe Bell will purchase the platform to upgrade their services, if they have any interest in improving them.

Mr. Robot

The show I decided to watch on Shomi was the first season of Mr. Robot.  Very interesting political drama with quite a bit of technology embedded in the story. This is not your annoying abuse of technology where it is as magical as Harry Potter, but where real-world technology is being used.  You have advanced computer users using what they actually would -- Kali Linux on laptops, OpenWrt in routers -- and you see real code in real programming languages (and real apps and shell commands) popping up on screens.

You have these people using these advanced skills for political aims. How you would classify them (Hacker vs cracker, hero or villain, freedom fighter or terrorist) is really up to the viewer and having the viewer thinking about this appears to be an important part of the narrative.

I'd be posting spoilers if I said any more, and I want to recommend the show without spoiling any of the quite large number of sometimes quite twisted twists.

After watching the first season I was immediately drawn to the second season. It was aired on Showcase back in July, and is no longer available from that website. In some ways I was glad as the Showcase website is the worst streaming site I've used in decades.

I looked up in watchincanada.ca and it only suggested the second season was on iTunes.  In context, that was amusing -- many politically active advanced computer users, such as myself, consider Apple to be a political opponent and not a vendor we would ever consider using.  To put a show that would appeal to us only on a service that many of us find offensive didn't make sense.

Google Play Movies and TV

I decided to look Mr Robot up on Google Play (with Google sitting above the line of what I find politically tolerable) and found Mr Robot Season 2 for $16.99.

While Google Play Movies and TV streams like Netflix does, it is organized and priced more like DVDs with purchase and rental.  There isn't a fixed monthly price, but different pricing for different content.

As an example, Mr. Robot season 1 and 2 are $1.99 per episode, or $16.99 for the entire season (10 episodes for season 1, 12 episodes for season 2).    Game of Thrones episodes are $3.49 per episode, or $33.99 per 10 episode season which is comparable to the DVD pricing ($42.99 on Amazon.ca at the moment, but that price will likely be lower by the time it ships November 15).

Game of Thrones and Bell Media

Wait a minute? What?

Yes, I did just list Game of Thrones, which really surprised me when I saw it. I didn't even think to look for it on Google Play because everything I read and heard from fellow GoT fans suggested that Bell was blocking GoT from access to non-cable subscribers in Canada -- meaning I had to wait as with previous seasons for GoT to eventually be released on DVD in order to not infringe.  Last year the DVD was finally release in March with the next season starting broadcast at the end of April.  It was almost a full year with other fans blurting out spoilers in my presence, making the series less enjoyable for me as time went on.

I saw no mention of Google Play in a series of CBC articles in April,  May and June where Bell was claiming it was easy to pay and yet Bell representatives only spoke of cable-tied options. When you look at the Game of Thrones page on the HBO Canada (Bell) site there is no mention of non-cable alternatives for paying for the series. Not even a mention of DVDs of older seasons.  The HBO Canada site mentions TMN GO which offers GoT for streaming, but their FAQ clearly states "At this time, TMN GO is only offered as part of a subscription to The Movie Network through a participating Television Service Provider. It is not available directly through us."

When did this show become available on Google Play for Canadians? Canadians are often blocked from content available to US customers from services like Netflix and Google Play -- and there is no equivalent to Hulu or Amazon Prime Video, so I quite legitimately assumed all talk about US alternatives including HBO GO didn't apply to Canadians.  Has it been available for a few seasons, just hidden from fans, or only made available this year?  Was it only made available some time this summer because of media attention made to the fact that HBO Canada (Bell) has been refusing to allow fans to pay?

Similar to shows which offer new episodes weekly during the broadcast period the GoT Google Play page says "Purchase Season 6 and it will be available for playback and added to your library as soon as it's available for release".  Did I really have a legal option to watch starting at the end of April which Bell deliberately hid from me?  Why no mention in the interviews that CBC did of Bell representatives, potentially informing fans of the option back in May when it was first being released?

Like most of my interactions with the "Canadian" broadcasters I feel frustrated at how disrespectful I'm treated as a fan.

To confirm that Google Play wasn't talking about the timing of the DVD release next month and that it was already available, I purchased the season and immediately confirmed episode 10 is playable (just the start of opening sequence -- spoilers!).  I then logged into Amazon.ca and canceled my pre-order of the DVD box set.

These are market problems that must be discussed as Bell likely sees Google Play as competition for cable, putting them in a conflict of interest situation which makes them unsuited to own "HBO Canada".  The lack of mention of non-cable alternatives by HBO Canada (Bell) is something that the competition bureau, CRTC and HBO should be watching closely.  The HBO Canada site should be focused on the widest possible distribution in Canada of HBO content, not be a way for Bell to try to push people to legacy BDU services - that's tied selling, not a legitimate business practice, and is a practice that shouldn't be tolerated in Canada.

If our Copyright Act was modern the lack of even mentioning legal alternatives would clarify that Bell is at the root of infringement in Canada (not fans), and Bell (or the copyright holder who inappropriately gave them an exclusive license in Canada) shouldn't be allowed to complain about infringement which Bell is inducing.

Bell isn't the victim, but perpetrators of contributory copyright infringement.

Saying "sit down, shut up, and get a cable package" is a matter of control and conformity, not compensation, and copyright law shouldn't be able to be abused by companies which demonstrate they are uninterested in compensation.

If Bell was the slightest bit interested in protecting HBO's copyright in Canada they would be featuring all methods of paying clearly on the HBO Canada website.  In my mind one way to tell when copyright law is modern is if it forced copyright holder like HBO to go after contributory infringers like Bell first before they would be allowed to go after private citizens.

Technology

The Google Play Movies and TV's technology has features even beyond Netflix. Like Netflix its Chromecast app supports HDMI CEC, and as the same company that created the Chromecast devices will always support each new feature with advancing revisions of the device and software.  While Google Play has its own app, purchased content is also visible through the YouTube app so that convenience (or distraction depending on your preferences) is available.

Missing from Netflix, Google Play has an offline mode where you can pre-cache episodes and watch offline - such as when flying or other travel when Internet connectivity is unreliable or not fast enough for streaming.

There is a really cool feature I hadn't seen before when watching GoT episodes. While casting to the larger TV screen, circles were popping up on the tablet with the names of the actors (and characters) as well as the names of songs that are part of the soundtrack as they were part of the scene. This is a great use of the 2'nd screen beyond showing how far I am in the video. I couldn't find what this was with quick searching, so if anyone already knows I would appreciate links/etc. This is an amazing feature for shows like GoT that have many different story lines and many different characters moving forward in parallel. Now all I'd love to see is a map of Westeros in the background showing where people are :-)

Unfortunately you can't watch Google Play purchased content on all YouTube compatible devices. My Samsung Smart TV indicated "Video not playable on this device" when I tried to watch Mr. Robot episodes. Searching pointed me to the following answer on Google Video distribution settings which suggests that the copyright holder deliberately decided to disallow the content to work on this type of device.  This means the full remote control functionality (rewind, etc) is not available like it would be for regular YouTube or Netflix content using the Smart TV apps.

Market issues

When viewing the Mr. Robot content on the YouTube app I noticed it shows "NBCUniversalShowsCanada" as the user.  This got me thinking about who the supplier is for this content.  I looked up DC's Legends of Tomorrow and on a side-bar it indicates "More from CTV" and shows Arrow.  The Flash doesn't indicate who the distributor is, and Supergirl indicates Showcase.

This opens an obvious question: what will motivate broadcasters to fix their streaming sites when they can point to the expensive access via Google Play as if it were an alternative? I was considering paying for Supergirl season 2 to get away from the horrible Showcase website, but now that I know that it is Showcase that would get part of my money I dropped that idea.  I feel like I'm being pick-pocketed, not treated as a potential valued customer.

I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea that any part of my GoT payment is going to a contributory infringer (Bell) rather than only to HBO.

When I dropped cable I did so with the understanding that I would be redirecting as a minimum the money I was spending on cable to streaming services and DVDs.  I've been very happy with Netflix for new and older programming, have recently learned to hold my nose (try to forget it's Bell) and tolerate CraveTV and would have tolerated Shomi for older shows.  If CTV GO allowed me to log in via my CraveTV subscription it would make both services more valuable.

Google Play as a technology works great, and I would use it often if the broadcasters and/or copyright holders were more reasonable on pricing.  For about the same amount of money I am left with a trade-off between waiting for a late DVD release or purchasing through Google Play.  Google Play works on fewer devices, and because files are encrypted it is unknown when my paid library will cease to be "legally" accessible. As with other similar proprietary encrypted file formats, content available through Google Play cannot be trusted to be playable as long as a DVD will.

One option copyright holders should consider is appropriately priced bundles (Play now, receive DVD at release time) so that the ephemeral nature of encrypted Google Play content wouldn't deter purchases.  I have seen the reverse with recent "DVD + Digital HD" purchases where the "Digital HD" can be redeemed through Google Play.

The inclusion of Google Play among other options is much improved over purchases where you could only redeem through iTunes, which is useless to me. The DVD boxes and retailers don't indicate what service the "Digital HD" version is tied to, so I need to presume it doesn't exist and thus that possibility never adds value when I'm determining whether to purchase.  It is sad just how poor the studios are at marketing their own products, and how ignorant they are of how much the distribution medium matters.

Is Contributory Infringement a more appropriate #DigiCanCon topic?

When I read the following tweets I became concerned that we might see a repeat with the current Canadian Content in a Digital World Consultations of what I saw in the 10+ years of copyright consultations and committee hearings (C-60, C-61, C-32)  that eventually lead to the passage of Bill C-11.

Lots of talk surrounding the importance of protecting #IntellectualProperty and #Copyright today! #digicancon https://t.co/mUoCZcXw1e

— Canadian Heritage (@CdnHeritage) October 11, 2016

#Copyright + #IntellectualProperty has to be respected – We need to educate the importance of paying for content at a young age. #digicancon

— Canadian Heritage (@CdnHeritage) October 11, 2016

This is similar to how ACRTA and the Writers Guild continuously and mistakenly suggest that a willingness on the part of audiences to pay is a primary or even important consideration when it comes to scenarios when people are not paying.

Educating people, young or otherwise, about the importance of paying for content is an irrelevant conversation when appropriate mechanisms to pay aren't offered.

Secondary Infringement

This got me thinking -- maybe there is an aspect of copyright law that is appropriate to be discussing, specifically policies targeted at those businesses which are the root cause of that potential infringement.

The idea of contributory or secondary infringement has been part of copyright law for quite some time (See section 27), with a new section on provision of services that "enable" infringement being added as part of Bill C-11.  The recent addition was a narrowing of a concept called "inducement" where those who were seen to be "inducing" people to infringe would be considered liable as contributors to that infringement.

This concept was narrowed to not go after those who induce infringement, but only unauthorized providers of services which enable access.  The reasons for this change was obvious to me, but not to the government: the entities most guilty of inducing Canadians to infringe copyright were many of the same people lobbying the government for even "stronger" copyright.

Las weekend I openly asked the question: Can Canadians stream TV without eventually going to unauthorized sources?

Whether I personally go to an unauthorized and/or infringing source to watch the missing episode is ultimately irrelevant.  This episode is unavailable for me to pay, so claiming it is a matter of price is nonsense as no price has been offered.  The only choices offered to me by the broadcasters are not watching the episode (and subsequent episodes this season) or to go to an unauthorized (and possibly infringing) source.

What is relevant is that even someone who has spent decades speaking with fellow authors about how we can receive better material and moral rewards for our creativity feels pressure to infringe copyright by failures of the business models of intermediaries.

Copyright should become a tool to go after those who are inducing the infringement.  In this case the perpetrator is Bell Canada, who through actions and inaction through their various subsidiaries is easily the greatest secondary infringer in Canada.  They are not so coincidentally the perpetrator in the example I gave in my posting.

Note: I'm aware that it is unlikely that the relevant copyright holders would go after these secondary infringers as they are blocked by a Stockholm Syndrome where they have far too much sympathy for those who are the largest cause of copyright infringement in Canada.  It might require that government agencies be able to step in and protect these interests, which includes the rights of Canadian audiences who both want to access content and be offered mechanisms to pay.

Broadcast Television and BDUs not a relevant market

Anyone who tries to tell me that I should just subscribe to a cable package and be happy about it must realize that what they are asking for is conformity and not compensation.

I consider BDU's to be an outdated method of watching scripted programming, and one that is in many ways incompatible with my livelihood.  Telling me I should just suck it up is rudely throwing money on the floor, from someone who thinks that the customer could never be right.  You lose all authority to be claiming that those who don't pay are somehow immoral, rather than your unwillingness to accept our money (or being apologists for secondary infringers) being the core problem.

There are practical business reasons why I'm uninterested in a BDU.

As a software author I depend on peoples ability to choose my software in order for me to get paid at all.  This makes attacks against software choice, not copyright infringement, the primary threat to my business interests.

In order for people to have software choice they need to not be forced into a narrow set of devices where the manufacturer imposes or filters what software is allowed to be used.  One of the ways that device choice has been greatly narrowed recently is through the tie between encrypted content and "authorized" devices that contain the decryption keys.  This tied selling between the ability to access content from "authorized" sources and specific brands of technology should be considered illegal under our Competition Act, but is currently presumed protected by the "technological measures" aspect of our Copyright Act.  While there has been no credible evidence to suggest this tied selling reduces rather than  incentivises copyright infringement, it does reduce software choice and infringes the rights of technology owners.


Television has been going backward in recent decades.  With analog OTA and cable the signalling was a vendor-neutral standard, allowing audiences to use access devices of their own choosing. Confusion around the digital transition was abused by BDUs where rather than using standard digital signalling as is used in other countries, the BDUs moved to using proprietary signalling requiring that people purchase or rent specific brands of technology authorized by the BDUs to access content. This alone makes BDUs an undesirable choice for me as a BDU subscription would be a payment to an industry that is promoting policies that if left unchecked will put me out of a job.

On top of the practical business reasons, there are also others.  I not only want to access scripted programming on the devices of my choosing, but I also want it to be at a time of my choosing.  Even if I had a legacy cable subscription I would only ever use the PVR function and never watch "live".  I am not a computer and am unwilling to have my life programmed by someone else.  I will watch programming when I am available to do so, not when someone at a broadcaster said I should watch it.

Can Canadians stream TV without eventually going to unauthorized sources?

In an earlier article discussing how Bell's CraveTV wasn't competative with Netflix, I suggested I would try to watch a few shows via the streaming sites offered by Canadian broadcasters. The shows I listed were:

• Flash season 3 premiere: Tuesday, October 4 at 8E on CTV
• Arrow season 5 premiere: Wednesday, October 5 at 8ET/PT on CTV Two
• Legends of Tomorrow season 2 premiere: Thursday, October 13 at 8E on CTV Two

To this I was planning on adding a few more:

• Supergirl season 2 premier: October 10 at 8E/7P on Showcase.
• Once Upon A Time season 6 premier: Sunday September 26 on CTV
• Marvel's Agents of Shield season 4 premiere was on Tuesday, September 20 on CTV

Episodes are only available for streaming on CTV GO (App and website) for less than a week.  I didn't have a chance to catch up on season 5 of Once Upon a Time, and the first episode of season 6 is already locked down to only be viewable to BDU (Broadcast Distribution Undertakings -- Cable, Satellite, Bell IPTV branded as FibeTV) subscribers.  Even though I am a subscriber to CraveTV, another Bell property, CTV GO won't let me sign in using my CraveTV ID.  I can't seem to find any mechanism to subscribe to CTV GO as a separate service.

Last week I was in Fredericton for a conference.  The hotel Wifi wasn't fast enough to stream television, so I didn't watch any streamed programming.  This means that I missed the second episode of Marvel's Agents of Shield, which is now locked down only to subscribers , having watched the first episode a week earlier on CTV GO.  I am now blocked from watching future episodes this way as I can't watch episode 3 without having seen episode 2 for long-form narratives such as these shows. Yet again, Bell won't allow me to pay money to subscribe to a service that would allow me to catch-up on the missing episode.

I'm left in an all too familiar situation.  I can drop watching those two shows now that they are unavailable to me as a Canadian, or I can find the missing episode from some unauthorized source (either legally in another country, or in a way that infringes copyright) in order to continue watching the season.  It would only need to be a few episodes to allow me to catch up and then continue watching the "authorized" way.

This is a reality that politicians and other policy makers need to understand: people are driven to unauthorized sources because they aren't given the option to subscribe from authorized sources.  While there may be a tiny fraction of people who infringe copyright because they don't want to pay, I firmly believe the vast majority of copyright infringement happens because legitimate methods to pay are not offered.

I have already proposed multiple times a simple legislative change to solve this type of problem, in the form of a modernization of the fair dealings aspect of Canadian copyright:

Fair dealing for non-commercial uses of works not otherwise offered for license under reasonable terms is not an infringement of copyright.

This would clarify that Canadians going to alternative unauthorized sources would not be an infringement unless there was a legitimate authorized source made available to them.

I don't believe this would encourage activities currently considered copyright infringement.  It would instead provide necessary incentives to copyright holders and their licensees to work harder to make the content available via legitimate authorized sources such as:

• Broadcaster services such as CTV GO would have a mechanism for paid subscription independent of any BDU service.  This was already done with CraveTV and Shomi, which are owned by the same companies that own the streaming services in question.  When CraveTV and Shomi were launched they were also tied to a BDU service, but that mistake was corrected.
• Fix some of the flaws with Canadian streaming services that allege they are trying to compete with Netflix -- the obvious being that they should make seasons of shows available via CraveTV and Shomi closer to when the seasons are being broadcast.
• At the very least CraveTV and Shomi logins should work as an alternative to a BDU login for broadcaster provided services such as CTV GO which is owned by Bell along with CraveTV.  The relationship between Showcase (Corus, spun off from Shaw) and  Shomi (Rogers & Shaw) is more complex, but deals could have been reached with appropriate incentives.  This could even be offered as a premium add-on to these streaming services if the broadcasters didn't want to deal with subscriptions directly.

This policy would obviously reduce copyright infringement, but I believe it might have saved Shomi from being closed.   Redistributors need to make their streaming services more valuable to Canadians so more of us will be encouraged to subscribe, not continue to make these services more frustrating to use.

Canadian redistributors need to stop thinking of streaming services as a competitor to OTA and BDU broadcasting.  While there may be some overlap, they don't don't have the same potential customer base. I am no more likely go to backwards in time to subscribing to a BDU than I am to go backwards in time and ride a horse to my job in downtown Ottawa. Making streaming annoying in Canada won't drive me to a BDU, but it may eventually drive me to unauthorized sources.

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So far it is two shows down, and it will be interesting to see how long the 4 remaining will last.

Today I watched the first episodes in the season for Arrow and Flash.  Before I left for my trip I purchased the first season of Supergirl in DVD form, binge watched it, and am now ready to watch season 2 of Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow.

All 4 of these shows are from the DC comic universe, exist within the same Arrowverse, and will have a 4-way crossover this season.   It will be very frustrating if I am forced by the broadcaster to stop watching one or more of these series given their inter-relationship and the fact that there have been and will continue to be crossovers between the shows.

I am curious what alternative sources other Canadians have found for all 6 of these shows, as I'm skeptical I will make it through the entire seasons of any of them without needing to get a few episodes from elsewhere.

Was it inevitable that Shomi is shutting down?

Shomi has announced they are shutting down as of November 30.  I just signed up for the trial period in order to do a technology review, but I was never interested in the programming.   I assumed that being offered by another BDU it would be just like Bell's CraveTV which never even attempted to be competitive with Netflix.

A Canadian Press story offers the all too familiar perspective from the industry, which is the claim that Bell and Rogers were trying to play catch-up with Netflix.  The reality is that while Netflix is intended to be a replacement of broadcast, CraveTV is only an add-on to broadcast and doesn't offer a comparable service.

I continue to look forward to real competition for Netflix, but don't expect to see it from a broadcaster or a BDU.