Find this article in The Tyee.

And maybe eight times that, after misspending community media funds to further their own aims.

OpenMedia.ca is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to advance and support an open and innovative communications system in Canada. OpenMedia.ca is the organization that coordinates the SaveOurNet.ca Coalition.

We are currently envisioning our direction and YOU have a unique opportunity to help define OpenMedia.ca's work in 2010 and beyond. Take our "OpenMedia.ca Where To?" survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QL85KKW

Be a part of Opening the Media!

Join our exciting and growing organization:

Do you care about media? Are you interested in doing substantive work for a national nonprofit organization working on media issues? Want to learn the behind-the-scenes work that goes into effectively running a nonprofit?

OpenMedia.ca is seeking talented and creative volunteer interns to work with us at our young media democracy organization. Demonstrate your enthusiasm and skills in a team-orientated environment and be a part of creating positive social change and open media in Canada.

Find this article in The Tyee, rabble.ca, VUE Weekly, and Common Ground.


Meet the many innovators advancing the open media movement.

Some of us have made New Year resolutions to exercise more, eat healthier, or spend more time with friends and family. While these are important personal goals, it may be the right time to also have a loftier collective resolution -- to drastically open up our media system in 2010.

I've previously written about how the combination of big corporate media's self-mutilation and the increasing proliferation of the open Internet has created a historic opportunity to transform Canada's media system and our concept of citizenship, government and institutions in general. What I have been somewhat remiss in discussing to date is the third and most important factor leading to transformative change in media -- the open media movement.

Find the article on rabble.ca, VUE weekly, the Tyee, and Common Ground.

At Fresh Hot Type, the after-party for the Fresh Media Festival on October 24, local media arts group W2 provided a letterpress with which partygoers could experiment. The idea was that as the DJs spin in the background, participants could creatively express themselves by using the letterpress, ink and paper. Not satisfied with what seemed like the natural limits of the medium, participants soon began writing words and expressions on both their own and each other's bodies and acting out the words on the dance floor.

Big telecom companies like Telus like to scare policy makers by suggesting any open Internet requirements for Internet Service Providers will lead to "unintended consequences." I, however, have taken to arguing just the opposite: that letting ISPs become gatekeepers and regulators of Internet usage has both intended and unintended negative consequences for innovation, online choice and free expression. Clearly there are negative consequences to allowing an ISP to slow access to a radically democratic and innovative file-sharing service like bittorent, which is still very much in an embryonic stage of development. Most major ISPs are slowing access to bittorent and this limits our online choice of services and content, it limits individuals and companies that would innovate with this technology, and it stifles those who would have liked to express themselves through its applications.