I spent a lovely two weeks in PEI this summer visiting with friends and family. When I returned I discovered that while I was gone the CRTC had made the willfully ignorant and insultingly dirt stupid decision to change the rules in how we are allowed to buy access to the internet in Canada.
“But, Robbo,”, I hear you ask, “What does that have to do with me?”
Here it is in a nutshell from Digital-Lifeline.ca
It means that Bell will be allowed to impose ridiculously low limits on how much you are allowed to download per month and charge you excessive overage fees for it, even if you are using someone else’s Internet service that operates on a Bell line. The motion they filed asks for a 60 gigabyte (GB) per month limit with a fee of $1.125 per gigabyte for overages. 60GB is an incredibly low limit and is unrealistic given the amount of rich content (such as video) that permeates the web today. Even non-enthusiast users can easily exceed that by things as common as frequent YouTube usage and of course, more techie people like myself go higher than that still. Bell already has a fee structure like this in place for their own customers but now wants to extend that to cover all third party Internet providers that are forced to use their lines. For many customers, it could mean their cost for Internet service could more than double and for no extra speed or quality of service.
What makes this bad? For starters, most third party Internet providers don’t buy their bandwidth from Bell, they buy it from other companies and already pay for usage, an average of which is factored into their monthly fees that you pay as a customer. Secondly, Bell has consistently claimed that they need to do this in order to deal with congestion and overcrowding on their network. This has been demonstrated as an outright lie by not only outside analysis but often by Bell’s own submissions to the CRTC. Aside from the fact that bandwidth cost is the lowest it has been in history, their network is simply not as overcrowded as they say and the cost of keeping up with demand is already covered in what they charge people now, as is demonstrated by Bell’s continuing profitability. Bell is essentially using false information to charge us all significantly more for a service that already makes them a tidy profit.
This move is blatantly anti-competitive and Bell’s only motivation for it is that they also provide TV and phone service, both of which are losing numbers to cheaper, more consumer friendly solutions provided online. Severely low limitations like these stifle Canada’s ability to innovate and are quickly taking us from a position as a world leader in Internet penetration to a laughing stock. Other countries around the world are now offered speeds multiple factors higher than what we get here and with much more reasonable download limits, if any at all. Simply put, Bell is trying to control how we use the Internet in order to protect their failing traditional business models. The CRTC (which is staffed largely by former big telecom executives) is complicit in this and is now consistently ruling in Bell’s favour despite all evidence clearly demonstrating their true intentions. This organisation is either incompetent, corrupt or both. Their mandate is to ensure a fair, competitive environment for Canadian consumers and in this, they are an utter failure to us all.
It’s as if the decision was written by the representatives of Bell itself – just as the infamous copyright reform Bill-61 was so obviously written by the U.S. Ambassador and the U.S. media lobby.
We must remember this is consistent behaviour from this current incarnation of the watchdogs of the public airwaves (and other forms of communication) in this country who no longer act as servants of the citizens but as the intentionally ill-informed and weak-kneed mouthpiece of the Harper government and the corporate toads who hold the leashes of our elected representatives.
It’s all part of the same steaming pile of crap as the decisions involving the formation of the New Media Fund – burdening any investment in innovative new forms of online content with required partnerships with the dying business models of broadcast television (an act akin to tossing an anchor to a drowning man) and establishing a board stacked with representatives of the cable industry thereby letting the groaning bloated giants of media retain their role as gatekeepers, jealously guarding their entitled turf by wedging their smug pimpled haunches firmly in the doorway that leads to the future, piling their dung upon the steps for us all to wade through and thereby guaranteeing any growth or success to be had in this country will surely be pissed away in yet another series of meaningless and wasteful gestures. Oh sure, a few good things will come from some of those who have the stomach to swim through that rising fetid tide – the industry itself will stall whilst desperate independent creators will have no alternative but to seek opportunity outside our borders.
It’s the same old sad fucking story.
All this has, without a doubt, occurred under the direction of the Harper government who have made it clear they want the CRTC to take a more lax attitude to regulating the internet – all in the cause of letting the marketplace take its course and to foster increased competition.
From a CBC report:
Criticisms of the CRTC in online message boards and in comments on CBC stories have been building since it was ordered to proceed with a “light regulatory touch” in 2006 by then industry minister Maxime Bernier.
“Canada’s new government has again furthered its ambitious policy agenda for the telecommunications sector by issuing the policy direction to the CRTC,” Bernier said at the time. “Our plan will increase competition in the marketplace, which ultimately will have a positive effect on the consumer who will benefit from greater choices and improved products and services.”
Bullshit.
The old media retain control of the purse strings thereby thwarting any threat of competition to their rotted zombie-like economic models. Access to content is now beholden to the pricing schemes of a monopolistic telco who will pursue its own best interests and seek to limit the growth and viability of any alternative carriers.
In October the CRTC will render its decision on Net Neutrality and if, as it now seems very likely, they will once again kowtow to the wishes of the Harper government and effectively give away control of what we are allowed to see and say in our internet to the same dickhead greedy fucks who claim to own the internet.
Keep your hands off my thoughts and words, buddy. You don’t own me.
I’m with McLuhan on this one.
“Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth’s atmosphere to a company as a monopoly.”
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964
Now there is a movement afoot to have the CRTC disbanded. You can sign the petition here. I did. I did it even though I know it won’t make a lick of difference. You should sign it too.
“But, Robbo,”, you ask, “Why bother signing if it won’t change anything?”
Think of it as sticking a finger in those dead-eyes of Harper.
A new government, with a decisive, informed and pro-active agenda to keep access to the internet open to true competitive practices is really the only way to get through this. Even then we’ll still be subjected to the same damnable dance of lobbyist monkeys and back room corporate pressure to wrest the choices of the citizens from their grasp and place them firmly in the pockets of the broadcast and telecom industry.
But go ahead and sign – if only to speak up publicly and say: “Yo – yeah you – you with the half-digested wad of my cash sticking out of your poop hole. Yeah you. I’m talkin’ to you. can you hear me? Good. Fuck off.”
Now these are not terribly civilized words to be tossing around on the internet, I know that, but I have never claimed to be a paragon of civilization. If I offend anyone with my vitriol that’s just too fucking bad. I’m a pissed off citizen who also happens to work as an independent in the same industry that is continually being fucked up the arse like some orphaned child in the basement of a Victorian workhouse. I feel I have a right to bitch and complain.
Back in 1993 I was asked to give an address at a gathering of the Alliance For Children & Television. Alan Mirabelli very kindly introduced me as being a vertically integrated individual in reference to my wearing of many hats as writer, producer, director, performer, designer, code monkey, chief cook and bottle washer. Vertically integrated was a hot buzz word of the day applied to major entertainment companies as they took increasingly orgasmic delight in absorbing each other like some corporate version of The Blob.
In my talk I spoke of a very near future where the internet would be more powerful, more pervasive and capable of carrying more content and exchange of ideas than anything we had ever known before. Most of the folks there had barely heard of the internet, let alone the world wide web, and they shook their headsin disbelief and chuckled at my naive optimism. A very few of the folks in the back – you know who you are – nodded, as if to say: “Good, I’m not the only one who sees this happening.” The folks from the CRTC who were in attendance, sitting at the front tables, merely leaned back with scowls on their faces as I pressed home the point that their position would soon become undermined and eventually irrelevant as the power to become a broadcaster moved from the monopolistic uses of the public airwaves to the individual uses of countless members of the public itself. That the internet would replace television and ignore borders. The role of the CRTC as guardians of Canadian culture in media would inexorably and inevitably dissolve away to nothing. The CRTC reps didn’t like being told they would no longer fulfill a necessary function.
I probably didn’t endear myself with anyone in the crowd by finishing my talk with a quote from Hunter S. Thompson’s Generation Of Swine:
The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
I thought it was funny.
16 years later …
Perhaps this group of willfully ignorant and dismally pliable bureaucrats were listening to my words after all. Perhaps they went ahead and took my advice and found a new relevance for themselves. Perhaps they have moved on and defined a new role for themselves in 21st century.
Corporate Cocksuckers.
Yeah – that’ll look real pretty on a resume.
The hell with civil discourse. We scared their asses when the public outcry rose up over Bill-C61 and saved Canada from inheriting the disastrous DMCA policies of the U.S. Net Neutrality and truly competitive access to the net should and will become an election issue. The parties that side with corporate rule will fall.
Old rules need to change. New rules need to be applied. All of this must be in the service of the needs of the people and not the needs of a few grotesquely self-interested business turds. It’s just a fucking pisser that we have to needlessly claw our way through this steaming deluge of horseshit to get there.
So . . . Sign every petition you can. Join every Facebook group you can. Attend every rally you can. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell them again and again. Make them so sick of hearing about it they actually do something to make it stop so that at the very least you’ll finally shut the fuck up about it.
Most importantly – Vote.
Vote the fuckers out who give your power to the corporations.
Vote the fuckers in who will eventually become corrupted themselves but who maybe – just maybe – will be able to effect some change for at least a brief window of time.
They do not own the internet and they do not own culture.
You do.
It is a part of your nervous system.
Don’t let anyone sell, own or control that which belongs to you – that which is you – that which is all of us – together.
Enjoy the rest of the summer.
Fuck them.
Cheers.
P.S. While yer at it, check out http://www.digitalagenda.ca/ – good source of info & news.
P. P. S. That’s it for venomous rants for now. Only happy happy joy joy from now on – until they really piss me off.
AND NOW . . . – just cuz I always like to leave you with something upbeat – here’s Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild in their amazing hit music video Do You Want To Date My Avatar?, which yesterday topped 1 million views on iTunes. That fucking rocks, @feliciaday!
What does any of this have to do the CRTC and Bell and all that crap I was ranting about? Only that merely watching stuff like this is now going to cost you more – for no reason other than Bell wants more of your money and there aint jack shit you can do about it.
Enjoy it while you can.
UPDATE: As mentioned in the earlier version of this blog post, Michael Geist will launch has launched the Speak Out On Copyright website and you should go there now.
I’ve been bleating for some time now about how the Harper government was trying to jam through Bill C-61 in the hopes of looking good in that particular shade of brown lipstick the U.S. media lobby loves so well, and how in the well-intentioned but malignantly misguided efforts to reform copyright law in Canada the people most affected by these changes – the people of the country – were not consulted.
Here’s your chance.
Michael Geist reports on the launching of the Copyright Consultation Website where you – and everyone you encourage to go there – can let the government know exactly what you feel and think about copyright law and how it affects you, this country and the world.
As Geist himself says in a previous post:
There has been some criticism over the past week about perceived “A” lists for those invited to roundtables and those excluded. My view is that the only list that really matters is the list of people who take the time to make a public submission. That process is open to everyone and this is the ideal opportunity to ensure that Canadians voices are heard. The government has not consulted on copyright since 2001 and this consultation represents both a crucial opportunity and a potential threat. While Canadians can ensure that the government understands that copyright matters and that a balance is needed, some groups will undoubtedly use the consultation to push for a return of Bill C-61. Indeed, the recording industry has already said that that bill did not go far enough. That means we could see pressure for a Canadian DMCA, a three-strikes and you’re out process, and the extension of the term of copyright to eat into the public domain.
Countering those calls will require broad participation. To help foster that participation, tomorrow I will be launching a new website geared specifically to the copyright consultation along with my short form response to these questions. I plan to blog a long form response throughout the summer.
Geist will soon have his own site up to help organize voices that can speak just as loudly as the favoured elite who get to sit in on the roundtable discussions and twist the government’s ear. This is important shit that will affect everything from the public domain, the DMCA, that fucking ACTA bullshit, Net Neutrality, Freedom Of Speech, government transparency, open culture and more.
I’ll be sure to holler about it when the other site comes online.
In the meantime visit the consultation site – tell your friends – talk about it – think about it and be sure to give Geist’s latest post a read since it really distills the issues to the core points that will affect everything we will do for the rest of our lives.
Everything? Really? Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration? Indulging in hyperbole, perhaps? Not when you give it even just a moments thought.
Here’s Geist’s thoughts on Why Does Copyright Matter?
For me, copyright matters because I am a professor and my students need access to copyrighted materials and the freedom to use those materials. It matters because I am a researcher who needs assurance that as materials are archived they will not be locked down under digital rights management. It matters because I am deeply concerned about privacy and fear that DRM could be harmful to my personal privacy. It matters because I have created videos and need flexibility in the law to allow for remix and transformed works and do not want my content taken down from the Internet based on unproven claims. It matters because I am a writer and I need certainty of access to speak freely. It matters because I am a consumer of digital entertainment and I want the law to reasonably reflect the right to view the content on the device of my choice. It matters because I am a parent whose children have only known life with the Internet and I want to ensure that they experience all the digital world has to offer. It matters because I live in a city with a strong connection to the digital economy and we need forward-looking laws to allow the next generation of companies to thrive. It matters because I am a proud Canadian who wants laws based not on external political pressure, but rather on the best interest of millions of Canadians.
So think about it. Read about it. Talk about it. Visit the site(s).
And then speak up.
Cheers.
P. S. Muchos gracias to Jimmy Kayak (aka Jim Taylor) for his shout out about this post and the issue at large. Thanks, man!
It's going to be more of a personal news aggregator with a featured video blog from yours truly. We'll see how long that lasts. So bear with me - thanks.
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