Michael Geist’s Analysis of the TPP

Now is a very important time to be following Michael Geist’s blog, as he’s analysing the TPP in very clear and understandable terms. The actual agreement is over 6,000 pages long – probably the longest international agreement ever written and one that no one will ever read, let alone understand, entirely.

But Michael is breaking it down, piece by piece, and pointing out the impacts on our daily lives and the inconsistencies with Canadian values.

So contact your Member of Parliament, and let them know that you did not vote for the TPP. That the Liberals were elected to throw out these piece of Stephen Harper Americanization of Canada and keep Canadian laws made in Canada!

Michael Geist on suggestions for a Netflix Tax

Micheal Geist’s post It’s Time to Be Honest: Netflix Will Not Mean the End of Canadian Television is brilliant in the way it lays waste to some of the most popular complaints about Netflix and their lack of contribution to Canadian television (i.e.: sponsoring Canadian content).

The numbers get a bit complicated at one point but the result is clear, forcing Netflix to follow the traditional model of contributing to the development of Canadian content through the Canadian Media Partnership (CMP) is pointless. Their contribution wouldn’t even amount to a drop in a very huge bucket.

But letting them purchase streaming rights, in competition with other streaming services (including Rogers & Shaw’s Showmi) would result in significant contributions towards the creation of Canadian content!

Can SPAM Act

I’ve recently had to read the Can SPAM act as it applies to the an organization I’m part of. Besides getting a wicked headache there’s a few interesting bits in the law.

The short of it is that this law won’t change much. In particular there’s section 10. (9) (c) that pretty much makes the whole thing pointless. There’s a lot more to the the law and a whole bit about installing software (that includes cookies, Javascript, and such) but my concern was about sending e-mails.