Keep your bloody hands off my internet

ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) tried to lobby the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) to institute the same Canadian content regulation it currently imposes on Radio and Television onto the internet in Canada. You read that right - ACTRA wants the CRTC to ensure (via your internet service provider) that measures were in place to promote and protect Canadian content in the intertubes.

Luckily, the chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said "regulation was not necessary, because online media is not an immediate threat to traditional broadcasting." Which poses the next question - if the CRTC begins to feel that online media has become a threat to traditional broadcasting, what then?

If you read the comments on this story at the linked news media web site, you will see an overwhelming number of those who believe the time has come to abandon Canadian content regulation in an effort to promote a healthy business concept called 'competition'. If it can't compete against international (but mostly American) content, why should tax dollars be spent promoting it? That doesn't really do anyone any favours in the long run. More and more people are getting their content from the internet simply because of the variety of choices available. Regulating the net would cause quite a backlash IMHO.