January 15, 2003

Great Canadian Digital Media Rip-off A Globe and Mail article examines the declining fortunes of the music business in Canada and also reports on the antics of the Canadian Private Copyright Collective which has already put a 21 cent per CD levy on digital media sales in Canada. It now wants to increase this to 59 cents per CD, 60 cents per cassette, $2.27 on sales of individual recordable DVD discs; 2.1 cents per megabyte for recording media permanently installed on computer hard drives; and $21 for each gigabyte available in MP3 players. Whatever the Canadian Music business does to deal with falling demand for $15 to $18 CDs they shouldn’t try to tack on arbitrary costs to digital media. Visit the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access to help fight these levies. 11:28:09 PM

Mickey Mouse will be under the sole control of Disney for another 20 years at least as the Sony Bono Copyright Act was upheld by the US Supreme Court. 11:18:32 PM

The Canadian Jews News has a special report on the portrayal of Israel in the media. One major problem is that many media organizations cannot or don't want to acknowledge that history started before 1967. 11:15:09 PM

The Jerusalem Post looks at the roots of the Palestinian refugee problem, and the Arab refusal to help their brethren. The report contrasts this to how Israel took in hundred of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arabs and within a few years settled them in Israel. I once visited the site of a Jewish refugee camp in the Galilee; it’s been an empty field for decades. 11:14:11 PM

The CBC reports on the official university investigation of the pro-Palestinian riot at Concordia University last September. The university rector said that the pro-Palestinian rioters used a "concerted, planned attempt to stop the event by any means possible, including violence and intimidation" even after some of the leaders of the riot told the university a planned demonstration would be peaceful. 11:13:15 PM