Canada: Proposed legislation to toughen penalties for buying illegal satellite services

CBC ^ | 02/26/04 | CBC

[Snowyman]

A stunning admission. Worth repeating

Not really . It's not true. This is economics , nothing more.

The Commission approves applications by Rogers Cable Inc., Rogers Cablesystems Ontario Limited/limitée and Rogers Ottawa Limited to change the source of the signals of television stations affiliated with the U.S commercial networks that they distribute on the above-noted cable distribution undertakings serving Ottawa and various locations in Southwestern Ontario. Henceforth, the U.S. commercial television stations distributed on these undertakings will generally be from Detroit, Michigan. 1. .

Essentially, the applicant proposed to replace various signals of television stations that provide the programming of the U.S. commercial networks CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX with signals from similar affiliates in Detroit, Michigan, as well as to make other changes designed to ensure that viewers receive signals of high technical quality.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2003/db2003-579.htm

[Iberian]

Good point. I didnt realize they had satellites

[Iberian]

kanuck hey

[Persephone Kore]

"This is economics , nothing more."

no, it's politics.

it's a soviet-style command economy, which makes economics subservient to politics. it's not true free-market economics.

[Snowyman]

Wanna bet?

[okie01]

"Essentially, the applicant proposed to replace various signals of television stations that provide the programming of the U.S. commercial networks CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX with signals from similar affiliates in Detroit, Michigan,..."

I understand your post and appreciate the technicalities involved. But I believe doc30's comments had to do with the availability and content of Fox News Channel (FNC) -- the cable channel, not FOX network, which is over-the-air (and controversial only because of its juvenile programming practices).

[Snowyman]

Sorry it's html , doesn't copy & paste very well,

As of November 2000, Can-West Global has held the licence for Fox News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Canada. That would be a digital hybrid alongthe lines of the Rogers and Shaw Cable-owned MSNBC here, which carries mostlyU.S. content with some recycled CPAC pro-gramming in the off-hours.Why Global hasn’t launched Fox NewsCanada is a mystery. Last week, companyspokesperson Geoffrey Elliott said he was “notin a position to comment’’ on the matter. My guess, and it’s pure speculation, is that Can-West has too much debt to deal with such anendeavour. That said, last week it didannounce it will launch CoolTV, a digi-netdevoted to jazz.But those of you who want Fox – and aren’twilling to risk going the illegal satellite dishroute – need not despair. That’s because, inJune, the Canadian Cable Television Associa-tion (CCTA) applied to the CRTC to add FoxNews to the list of non-Canadian channels eli-gible for digital carriage here. The CCTA alsowants to import HBO, Showtime and otherpopular U.S. cable services, mostly to hang onto customers who are hooking up to those black market dishes. Meanwhile, the Canadian Association ofBroadcasters (CAB), whose members includeCanWest Global, is fighting the CCTA applica-tion because it cuts into its business. (Forexample, why go to Chum’s Bravo for Sex AndThe City when you can get it off HBO directly?)Note that the CCTA and CAB have jointly –oh what a complex and incestuous web ourbroadcast industry be! – waged all-out war onillegal dishes, as evidenced by their anti-satel-lite theft TV ad campaign. Last Friday, theywon a major victory when the federal govern-ment suggested it would amend the law to combat “signal piracy.’’Which leads to an utterly ridiculous piece oftripe in the reactionary online rag The Ameri-can Enterprise last week,

“If You Like FoxNews, You’ll Hate Canada.’’Penned by Marni Soupcoff, a very nice girl who personally strikes me as a Linda Frum-in-an-intellectual-training-bra, it’s an error-filled,myth-ridden diatribe, apparently inspired bythe fact that the very same cable companieswho want to bring in Fox News also want to import the Arab all-news service Al Jazeera. Claiming that Canadians have no access tosuch U.S. programs as The Sopranos — hello? CTV runs it uncut on free TV!! — Soupcoffignores the CCTA application for Fox, as wellas the facts, and instead fulminates:“So,we Canadians find ourselves in the absurd position of potentially being able to tune into the latest news on the jihad againstthe imperialist, murderous, blood-sucking Jewish Zionist conspiracy, but unable to catchan episode of (Fox’s) Hannity And Colmes because a bureaucrat at the CRTC has decid-ed the former is more culturally acceptablethan the latter.’’Soupcoff’s rant mirrors many letters I havereceived in the past week, with readersdemanding to know why I support the intro-duction of Al Jazeera into Canada but not of Fox. Hey, who said I was against freedom of expression? As long as they don’t violate any hate laws, from the right or the left, let a thou-sand voices ring out. I say, let Fox among the Canadian chickens,eh? I don’t think it will get much of an audi-Get the facts straight, Fox friends -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 3 Get the facts straight, Fox friendsence here but that’s not my problem.Oh and by the way, I never did go on the net-work, as much as I wanted to. That’s becausethe CRTC and I satisfied the Fox producer thatthe channel wasn’t “banned’’ here.Perhaps if its many Canadian fans actuallyfollowed Canadian news sources, they wouldknow that too.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:CO40t-2HqGEJ:www.coldtype.net/Assets/broad/Broad26.pdf+crtc+fox&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Allan]

Don't pay attention to Snowyman.
For some reason he always feels obliged to come on to this Forum
to support our pathetic excuse for a country.

Feel sorry for the poor guy.
He's got a hopeless and thankless task.

[Snowyman]

Quit your bitching, You don't know how good you got it. And you can always leave ....but you never will.

[NorthOf45]

"I will never forget. Not how the both the Canadians and Mexicans voted against the freeing of the Iraqi people, or betraying the USA."

Uh ... yyyyeeah. You sure got us pegged.

[NorthOf45]

"Quit your bitching, You don't know how good you got it. And you can always leave ....but you never will."

You beat me to it.

[dinok]

Yes I do.

[azcap]

Suppose I get a Canadian TV dish and install it at my house in Indiana. Does anyone know what penalties I'd face from the U.S.?

 

Watching Canadian Broadcasting is its own punishment.

[William Terrell]

Canadian satellite providers are afraid the US providers will put them out of business. Since businesses are the life blood of a country, and also of the people in that country, the Canadian government took steps.

Protecting national integrity is one of the true purposes of a government, along with protecting the rights and property of the populace and the nation itself.

The satellite providers here don't have a right to sell their services to those in another nation. So they were getting some extra revenue for the Canadian customers, and now they won't. Sad. The America system was getting the public cut from citizens of Canada, which means what would have ordinarily been Canadian public income is diverted to America.

I don't blame them a bit. Individuals live nationally, not globally.

[NorthOf45]

Then you truly are confused.

[Snowyman]

Soupcoff's misleading article had a thread on FR . If I recall correctly a similar question was asked there and a poster said the US had comparable laws to protect US providers and broadcasters. Sorry , it's a thankless task, do your own research....

[AFreeBird]

Suppose I get a Canadian TV dish and install it at my house in Indiana.

Why would you want to?

[NorthOf45]

"Canadian satellite providers are afraid the US providers will put them out of business."

Nah, it couldn't be THAT. *sarcasm*

[gcruse]

We have our War on Drugs, they have their War on Information. Before Americans sneer at Canadian oppression, acknowledging our own is in order. Getting rid of both travesties is a worthy goal for both.

[July 4th]

I do the reverse with Canadian satellite television. There's actually some good stuff on their DBS systems, and I have an ExpressVU 18" dish set up in Wisconsin. You subscribe through a third party provider who gives you an address in Canada. Just don't buy any pay-per-view, or your receiver tries to dial the provider. I'm assuming the Canadian government has a serious issue with Canadians who are doing exactly the same thing I am, only with DirecTV.