Anti-UBB Rally Planned For Toronto This Friday, Parliament Hill Saturday

Posted on 2011/02/02 | 2 Comments

Word is finally spreading that the usage-based billing being implemented by Canadian internet providers this month is a really, really, really bad thing. In response, a Toronto rally is being organized for Friday 4 February 2011 followed by a Saturday rally outside Parliament Hill to communicate the dissatisfaction of pretty much all Canadian society. (Information is available after the jump for those who don’t use Facebook.) While it is likely to be an impressive demonstration, we must remember that all of this public demand may yield nothing more than a slightly less outrageous, but all-too-similar, compromise.

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Posted in Animation, Film, Music, Net Neutrality, News, Policy, Social, Streaming, Telecommunications, Television, Video Games

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‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’ Finally Reaches Japan

Posted on 2011/02/02 | Leave a comment

After an extended delay, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World will finally be getting a theatrical release in Japan this year, according to Yahoo! Japan. Whether or not this will undo the damage to Japan’s interpretation of Canadian life done by the Great Teacher Onizuka film in 1999 remains to be seen.

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Posted in Film

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Canadians Barred From Long-Awaited Dragonball Streams

Posted on 2011/01/17 | 2 Comments

Many Canadians were likely upset this past Saturday to find that FUNimation’s online streaming presentation of Dragonball Z was not available to them. When region blocking like this occurs, it is common to assume that the company in question simply doesn’t own the Canadian rights to a given title. FUNimation can’t use that excuse: they already explicitly stated in their initial press release that they own the Canadian streaming rights to the series.

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Posted in Anime, Streaming

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Two Weeks Left For Canadians To Speak Out On Copyright Bill

Posted on 2011/01/17 | Leave a comment

The legislative committee for Bill C-32, the not-quite-tyrannical-but-still-potentially-disastrous copyright bill, is giving Canadians until the last day of January to voice their opinions on the matter. And so they should, as despite numerous improvements over its predecessors, the new bill still carries the same fundamental problems as always. More importantly, it doesn’t leave any way for these issues to be re-evaluated, which even American copyright law has allowed.

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Posted in News, Social, Television

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Tiffany Grant To Reprise Role As Asuka in Evangelion 2.0 Dub

Posted on 2010/12/28 | 2 Comments


FUNimation confirmed long awaited casting information for the upcoming release of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance yesterday during its “FUNiCon 5.0″ online event. While Trina Nishimura (Lan Fan from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood) has been confirmed as the voice of new character Mari Makinami Illustrious, much more attention has been given to the fact that Tiffany Grant will be reprising the role of Asuka. This should come as little surprise to long time fans of the series, given Grant’s baffling obsession with the character, thoroughly documented in this video.

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Posted in Film, Anime

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You’re A Pirate, Santa Claus!

Posted on 2010/12/25 | 2 Comments

In 2008, during the heat of the controversy surrounding the government’s impending bill to amend the Copyright Act, many struggled to find compelling and appealing ways to explain the issue to the masses. The new bill would protect digital locks from any type of circumvention, meaning Canadians would be trapped within the confines of proprietary use and would effectively lose any right to use footage or samples from existing works for any reason whatsoever.

Most were (and, to a degree, still are) completely indifferent in spite of how intrusive and wide spread its effects would really be. I decided that the best way to approach this was by hi-jacking the otherwise positive and nostalgic feelings that are shared by many for the Christmas holiday season and using them as a vehicle to demonstrate the type of despair that this issue warrants.

While that original bill did not pass, a similar bill is currently wading its way through the Parliamentary process that has most of the same dire problems. The original post with this story went down with the old “Zannen, Canada” site, so here it is again. Merry Christmas!

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Posted in Copyright, Posterity

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A Friendly Reminder That Chat-r Is Evil

Posted on 2010/12/24 | 1 Comment

Speculation has arisen that Public Mobile, the admirable yet sadly ineffectual Canadian mobile phone upstart, may not be far from seeking a partnership or merger in the face of intense treachery from incumbent cell companies. It is now more important than ever to remind cellphone users that the recent Chat-r brand is, in fact, the purest incarnation of evil.

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Posted in News, Social, Telecommunications

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Netflix May Offer A Novel New Approach To CanCon: Willing Exhibition

Posted on 2010/12/14 | 1 Comment

NetFlixCrossposted from OpenMedia.ca:

While there has been considerable apprehension over Shaw’s demand for online streaming services to be regulated by the CRTC, Netflix is already two steps ahead in maintaining their competitive edge. The service has been accused of having an unfair advantage over conventional broadcasters thanks to the CRTC’s long-standing policy of not regulating Internet content. Rather than fight these accusations, Netflix has simply opted to do something that our conventional broadcasters would likely never do in an unregulated environment: willingly add a significant amount of Canadian content to their line-up.

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Posted in Film, News, Policy, Television

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Young Justice Premiere Garners Unanimous Acclaim

Posted on 2010/12/03 | 1 Comment

The long awaited premiere of the latest animated series based on the DC Comics universe, Young Justice, has been met with abnormally high approval after the early debut of the series’ one hour pilot. The show has not only been praised for its exceptionally high animation quality and accessibility for non-super hero fans, but has also delivered extraordinary ratings for Cartoon Network in the United States.

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Posted in Animation, Television

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Lest We Forget Pepero Day

Posted on 2010/11/11 | Leave a comment

While North Americans will spend November 11 reflecting on the atrocities of war and the lives needlessly sacrificed in its wake, residents of South Korea have a much different tradition: exchanging specific brand named candy.

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