There was a time when all that was played in Canada were performers from the US and UK. Then the government enacted a law that required 20% Canadian content. Canadian artists then got air time and the rest is history. Now we have many major stars that get air time in other countries, Justin Bieber, Michael Buble, Rush and Neil Young. Now we have too many to list. Before that time Canadian artists had to leave the country to make a living. We had Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Ann Murray and the Band (except Levon Helm) make it big. The only ones who stayed home were Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen. Now many Canadian artists make it big in Canada and can choose where they reside and play. The big money is still in US success because the market is ten times as large. We can't change that.
So draconian laws did help artists, but I wonder if it is necessary anymore. You can see from the lists below that we have a healthy music scene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bands_from_Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_musicians We have lots of other wacky laws. We pay a tax on all media to compensate the recording industry for piracy. This of course makes people want to pirate more because they have already paid for the privilege. Courts have sided with pirates against the recording industry when cases have gone to the courts saying they can't have it both ways. The government then wanted to remove the tax and the recording industry balked. Now they want to do an end run and push through ACTA*. In the meantime we get labelled as a haven for piracy because the recordng industry pushed for a law to compensate piracy and the courts uphold the agreement in cases of piracy. You can't win. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement That is the long and short of it. We do not get Pandora or Spotify because of strange laws resulting from our unique situation (being next door neighbour to the biggest entertainment industry in the world). There are other strange things that we do to tick off the US industry. Canadian cable networks strip out US advertisements on US networks and replace them with Canadian content. Maybe the cold has gotten to our brains. :) Roy Using Kubuntu 10.10, 64-bit Location: Canada The Canadian government protects Canadian content? Darned socialists! jk, I'm democratic socialist myself. lol > OK, this isn't an insight by any stretch but I noticed that you mentioned > SomaFM. I love "Drone Zone"! Matter of fact, I just turned it on as > responding to your post reminded me. lol > Mark > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, please email [email protected] & you will be removed.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
