Musings & Rambles

According to a Globe and Mail article from earlier this year, a Montreal-based company called Canipre has begun collecting evidence on over 1 million Canadians who illegally download. Caipre, an anti-piracy enforcement company that provides forensic services to copyright-holders within Canada, even had one of its clients before Federal Court requesting over 1000 IP addresses that will allow them to identify illegal downloaders of their content. It should come as no surprise that this client happens to be a powerful American movie studio, requesting information from an Ontario-based service-provider. But does this mean Canada’s cracking down in terms of illegal downloads?

Copyright cases such as these occur often in the States, this is a new chapter for Canada. While Americans can be fined for huge amounts of money, the recently-passed Bill C-11 restricts the fines for Canadians to a maximum of $5000. This was implemented specifically so the Canadian courts would not become bogged-down with thousands of copyright infringement cases. Some argue that Canada simply doesn’t have the culture for such litigation. However, Canadians do view the illegality of copyright infringement very lightly.

This brings into question whether, through measures such as Bill C-11, we are almost promoting or allowing Canadians to continue illegal downloads, despite the actions of companies such as Caipre (who, I might add, struggle in court). There are penalties, but very small ones, and the odds that you will have to face these consequences is slim. Studies show that Canada is 4th in the world for most illegal downloads of music, but on a per capita basis, we beat out the top 3. This means that on a personal level, the average Canadian downloads almost 2.5x more music than the average American. This has lead to American pressure on Canada to toughen up and change it’s approach. But Canada hasn’t, and continues to allow illegal downloads of not just music, but all types of digital content. Companies such as Caipre simply can’t compete with the embedded culture of tolerance in Canada.

Sources

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/anti-piracy-firm-targeting-canadians-who-download-illegally/article11877622/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/20/music-piracy-canada-top-countries_n_1899752.html

This post is in response to the blog post “Are Facebook Friends Really Friends” (https://blogs.ubc.ca/hollybishu/2013/10/03/are-facebook-friends-really-friends/).

In the aforementioned post it is argued that our current era of social media communication, Facebook “friend-ing” in particular, has damaged how we view friendship – and I would have to say that I wholeheartedly agree. I can count on both hands the amount of people I consider true friends – those who I invest time and energy into – yet I have 337 “friends” on Facebook. I barely communicate with any of them; however, when my mom asks me how “so-in-so” is doing from high school, or whether “what’s-his-name” still has a girlfriend, I usually have a pretty detailed response. Why? Because this “friend-ing” of people through Facebook or other social media allows us to peer into the lives of those who we otherwise don’t give the time of day. By being their “friend”, we can browse through their photos, read their posts, and see what others say to them – all without more effort than your hands sweeping over keyboard and mouse. It is both endearingly and creepily referred to as “Facebook stalking”, a term I would like to linger on for just a moment.

I can’t help but notice the parallels between “Facebook stalking” and other online forms of intelligence that we hear about so often. What makes our “stalking” any different from that of the government? Does “friend-ing” someone give us permission to perform this act, despite the fact that it is only a click of a button? We perform the very task that we protest against and cringe at the thought of. We use social media and the term friend as a way to “creep” on people, rather than putting in the effort to truly know them. We’ve turned our social life into a type of slacktivism with a side of creepy. We feel as if our “stalking” isn’t wrong because we’re “friends” with the person on Facebook, even if part of (or the entire) reason we “friend” them is simply to stalk and not to communicate. In an era where even civilians peer into the online lives of other civilians (real-world friends or not), how can we expect the government not to partake as well?

Food for thought. Perhaps these are just the late night ramblings of one who has noticed her own “Facebook stalking” ways.

If you saw this post’s title and immediately started singing “video killed the radio star”, you’re on the right track! Except, today, those who “killed the radio star” are now being killed by internet stars (metaphorically, of course!).

It is becoming increasingly more evident that internet videos, those on YouTube in particular, are replacing the entertainment void that was previously quelled by a dose of Saturday morning ‘toons.  In fact, there are even channels on YouTube that provide cartoons for children, uploaded every Saturday morning. But what’s great about YouTube is that, with 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, there is always a video to fit your entertainment needs. You can watch anything, from beauty how-to’s, daily vlogs, gaming commentary, or music videos (to name a few), and there is endless variety within even those specific categories. According to YouTube Statistics, “YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network”, with more than 6 billion hours of video watched each month.

Another fantastic benefit of this TV to Internet transition is the opportunity it has provided for so many people to do what they love, and share it with the world. If you can sing, dance, cook, craft, etc., upload some footage of your killer skills and the people will flock. Heck, you can even make a living out of it, all whilst having fun and providing free entertainment for the world to see. Currently, there are thousands of video creators on YouTube that earn six figures or more each year, and many have been given even more opportunities through their success. Some have appeared on talk shows, interviewed celebrities (even as big as One Direction), or even earned Guinness World record titles (the actual Internet Killed Television channel earned a record for most consecutive daily videos uploaded, currently over 1600 days)!

And while we won’t be seeing the end of TV any time soon, the worlds of TV and Internet-dome are definitely colliding. For example, celebrity judge and music producer Simon Cowell has recently launched the You Generation, a global YouTube talent search, not just in the categories of song and dance, but in any category! The idea is to help the average-Joe get noticed in the mass of videos on YouTube, and give them their boost to success. So far, many of YouTube’s current “celebrities” have worked together with Cowell to advertise and carry out the project. Entertainment is definitely taking a turn in an exciting new direction!