February 27, 2003

Great Canadian Digital Media Rip-off Canadians can sleep easier knowing that Céline Dion and other musicians will be able to eat now that the first $6.8-million of this year’s $28-million payout of the Canadian Private Copying Collective levy has been distributed. The CPCC will no doubt pay out much more money if it is able to continue to raise the levy that Canadians pay on all digital media. They wish to raise current levy of 21 cents per CD-R to 59 cents and create a new levy of $21 per gigabyte of flash or hard disk storage. That would raise the price of iPod or similar device by hundreds of dollars.  CTV has an older story on this issue including an interview with a Radio Shack executive. Support the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access in opposing this rip-off. 11:55:44 PM

As David Janes suggested, the Canadian government has punted on the issue of Canadian participation in a war on Iraq. Due to the plan Afghan deployment Canada will not (read cannot) send any ground troops to Iraq, even if the war is authorised by the United Nations. Meanwhile Canadian Naval helicopters are falling out of the sky, preventing even our ships from taking part in anti-terrorism operations. 11:33:16 PM