The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Decima Reports.

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Jeff Leiper has been named editor-in-chief of Decima Publishing Inc. He takes over responsibility for day-to-day editorial functions from Mario Mota, who is now publisher and president of the company.

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Telefilm Canada to fund 50 new media projects
Telefilm Canada has announced that it will fund 50 new media projects from its Canada New Media Fund. Three projects were selected from the Atlantic region, 13 from Quebec, nine from Ontario, and eight from the western region (some projects were approved for multi-phase financing). Of the projects, 16 were accepted for market research and prototyping, 17 for product development, and 17 for marketing. Overall, 163 projects were submitted for funding in this round, applications for which were due on Sept. 23, 2003. A full list of funding winners is available here.

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Assets formerly owned by the New Media Innovation Centre (NewMIC), Vancouver, will be auctioned on February 17, with the deadline for final removal of those items from the premises two days later on the 19th, according to Timeline Sales, which is charged with liquidating the assets. Timeline’s Murray Jarvis tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that for the past several weeks, the company has been soliciting interest in specific packages as outlined on the auction site at www.timelinesales.com, and is currently following up a number of leads. NewMIC’s Interactive Media Lab will be marketed outside the auction, but everything else will go on the 17th unless it is sold prior to the auction, Jarvis says.

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A new web site launched by the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC) is the first, its builders say, to incorporate elements of science and culture into an online exhibit dedicated to astronomy. On January 5, new Canadian Heritage minister Hélène Chalifour-Scherrer launched the site, built by Vancouver-based Pangaea Systems for a large consortium of 17 partners that contributed content.

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Q&A with Mike Kasprow

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The National Film Board (NFB) will soon launch its Canadian Culture Online Program (CCOP)-supported CinéRoute project from its exclusive home on CANARIE Inc.’s experimental broadband platform CA*Net 4 to the broader commodity Internet. Within weeks, the service, which streams Canadian films from the agency’s collection, will be available to 2,000 NFB members in Canada – people who have completed a free sign-up procedure online to let the NFB know they’re interested in receiving news and services from it.

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The National Film Board (NFB) will soon launch its Canadian Culture Online Program (CCOP)-supported CinéRoute project from its exclusive home on CANARIE Inc.’s experimental broadband platform CA*Net 4 to the broader commodity Internet. Within weeks, the service, which streams Canadian films from the agency’s collection, will be available to 2,000 NFB members in Canada – people who have completed a free sign-up procedure online to let the NFB know they’re interested in receiving news and services from it.

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The Copyright Board of Canada’s December decision on private copying is under attack from nearly all quarters as several parties to it have put the issue to the Federal Court of Appeal. In separate applications, the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), the Retail Council of Canada (RCC) and a coalition of digital device manufacturers have asked for a judicial review of the decision, which should come sometime this year. The applications argue the board committed a range of errors in coming to its decision to begin applying the levy to a new class of memory used in music playback and recording devices, as well as a familiar argument that the entire scheme is unconstitutional.

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