The "freedom" to use P2P services to "legally" download music in Canada could soon be a distant memory as the federal government plans to introduce amendments to Canada's copyright law. As it now stands following a Federal Court of Canada ruling last year, Canadians can download music but it's illegal to share it with others - figure that out if you can!
Naturally, the music industry is ecstatic. In a Canadian Recording Industry Association press release, The Orange Record Label president Steve Ehrlick dramatically says, "There wasn't a bank or a venture capitalist that would touch us — despite a business plan that was warmly received. It was because they considered the music industry to be the Wild West — no laws, no marshals and most importantly to them, no profits. I hear the opinion that copyright reform will stifle innovation. That's ludicrous. Proper laws encourage investment."
(Addendum: University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist said it will still be legal to download music, and that the music industry is not getting anything near what it wanted from Ottawa despite the upbeat content of the CRIA press release.)
It will be interesting to see if proper laws encourage better music. The music industry's focus on driving sales by appealing to the mass market has inundated us with too many Avril Lavignes and not enough Ron Sexsmiths - in my humble opinion. Too often, labels pursue high volume projects rather than high quality initiatives. Of course, that's a huge generalization that doesn't take into consideration the reality that Avril Lavigne CDs help labels pay the bills, but give me more Arcade Fire and Wilco and less Jimmy Eat World and Nickelback.
The music industry biggest challenge isn't copyright or shutting down P2P services but figuring out how it can take advantage of technology to drive sales in new and different ways. It's been six years since Napster appeared on the scene, and the music industry is still scrambling to find a business model for the 21st century.

This is difficult to believe but the CRTC - Canada's telecom regulator - has unveiled a new regime that will give consumers credits on their bills if their telephone carrier provides sub-standard service. The QoS system, which will be retro-active to 2002, is based on 13 criteria, including whether repair appointments were met and whether out-of-service trouble reports were cleared within 24 hours. The CRTC said from 1998 to 200, ILECs provided sub-standard service, and it is not "convinced pressure was sufficient to ensure telephone companies would meet the approved Q of S standards."
You can bet Bell, Telus, Aliant, etc. are going to be royally pissed. It's hard enough being an ILEC these days - what with the emergence of VOIP and competitors piggybacking on high-speed networks - without having to worry about regulators dinging yor for late repairmen, business offices that close five minutes early and complaints that take longer than a day to address. This is just another example of the CRTC taking too much of a hands-on approach to cater to the whims of consumers. Without a doubt, it's an anti-carrier, anti-business decision that makes you question the regulator's role/relevance in a fast-changing industry.

Russell Shaw raises the issue of lower VOIP phones within the corporate market. He believes costs could come by 60% by the end of this year, and that larger, better-capitalized companies such as Cisco and Avaya could play a key role as they drive for market share. It will be interesting see how features and form factor factors play in the sales/marketing mix. So far, the residential VOIP market has been focused on price rather than features, which I believe has undermined VOIP's growth. Do not under-estimate Cisco's determination in the VOIP market. From what I understand, Cisco has literally been giving away VOIP phones as part of router and switch sales - a sort of razor blade/razor exercise. This perhaps explains why Cisco is able to tout the hundreds of thousands of VOIP phones it has "shipped", and its market leadership.

Clearly, I have far too much time on my hands because I have decided to write a second blog. This one is mainly focused on what's happening on Toronto - looking at issues such as municipal politics, services, urban planning, recycling, taxation, business and population growth. It will be interesting to see how much traffic the new blog generates given it is not related to what I do professionallly and it will receive little "publicity" through the National Post. In a sense, it's a mini-experiment on how a blog can grow organically based mostly on word of mouth. Even if it doesn't receive much traffic, it will give me an opportunity to rant, discuss and talk about all the things that interest, bother and excite me about Toronto. If you're curious about city politics, urban planning or Toronto, check it out.