I watched the gala de l’ADISQ yesterday, which is an annual award ceremony rewarding musicians and singers from Québec. I haven’t watched Radio-Canada for months, but it was a family gathering and, well, I convinced myself that it was an opportunity to know what people are really listening to these days in Quebec.
What I saw was a community which was completely disconnected from reality. The presenter, Louis-José Houde, mentionned Youtube and made fun of the whole blogging, podcasting and videoblogging phenomenon in Quebec, saying people who upload their content on the Internet for no monetary reward are stupid and waisting their time, a joke obviously made to comfort an audience which would have liked to live forever in the old model (i.e. I produce a song or a content, I set a price for it, and I market it to a passive audience)
Later, the president of ADISQ, Paul Dupont-Hébert, along with Raymond Legault, the head of UDA (Union des Artistes), and 16 others associations of artists and entertainement companies from all over Quebec and Canada, made a public ambush appeal to the different government representatives in the audience. They asked for more money, but more importantly, they asked for content regulation on the Internet by the CRTC. Their point was that the Canadian government couldn’t let the market free, and that there must be a proeminent representation of content specifically from Québec and Canada on the Internet.
Ok, in which year do you live exactly? In 2007, the public is not anymore passive. We just don’t sit, wait, and consume what you are producing. We like to interact, create podcasts, discuss topics, engage with sometimes stupid but often brilliant home-made videos. We can make a band like Arcade Fire a worldwide success, we get to hear music from all over the world, and nobody is freaking telling us what to do.
I felt that ADISQ was living in an ideal world where they were breast-feeding consumers. The Internet is popular mainly because of its diversity and freedom, unlike the regulated radio and television industry. Besides, it’s not technically feasible to enforce a “proeminent representation of Quebec content on the Internet”. Ms. Solange Drouin, head of ADISQ, said they want the CRTC to force Internet service providers like Bell or Rogers to implement that, and that they are opening a conference today about this problem.
Fools…
Comments
Montreal Tech Watch October 29, 2007
new post: ADISQ asks for content regulation on the Internet http://tinyurl.com/3xua7n
Gabriel Goldenberg October 30, 2007
Update: CRTC “agrees” with ADISQ | Montreal Tech Watch October 31, 2007
[...] is after the ADISQ, the APFTQ, and the ACTRA made a public appeal last sunday to the Quebec and Canadian government. I am not sure if Michel Arpin said that to calm down these associations, which represent the music [...]
Roberto October 31, 2007
Look at pages 2-3 of The Gazette today (not a plug, I swear). It’s come to the point where an English-speaking Saku Koivu is considered a national threat and an affront to human rights.
Is this madness?
Heri October 31, 2007
The guy who says he should be “served” in french is really … well I don’t know what to say. If he is not happy, he should try to play hockey better than Koivu first, then he will have a right to say something.
M.Duhaime October 31, 2007
A speech by M. Konrad von Finckenstein, head of CRTC | Montreal Tech Watch November 05, 2007
[...] ADISQ’s initial announcement on Internet regulation was vastly picked up last week by bloggers and the media. A facebook group, Against CRTC regulating the Internet, was created by Pierre Coté, with now 192 members. Sylvain Carle wrote an open letter to ADISQ, where he shows that the business model has changed for the music industry and that producers should focus instead on their core skills, which is finding, supporting and promoting talents. Michel Leblanc wrote that the market has changed, and that the industry should instead find new ways instead to sell music on the Internet.Michel Dumais gathered the posts, quotes and invited other bloggers to write about the situation. [...]
Russell McOrmond November 05, 2007
I host digital-copyright.ca as a forum to coordinate responses to technology law issues like this. While we have focused on copyright revision, other laws which harm citizen control of new media are also covered.
Music sharing is good for album purchases after all | Montreal Tech Watch November 06, 2007
[...] comes just one week after the ADISQ came out, whining about the Internet, and how CDs sales were plummeting. This study shows that instead of [...]
ADISQ still clueless about the Internet | Montreal Tech Watch April 17, 2008
[...] have no words to state how stupid this would be (although less stupid than their last common declaration), and for the first time, was feeling sympathetic to the Bell representative, who claimed they [...]
Handyverträge January 24, 2011