Suzanne Guèvremont, director general of the Centre National d'Animation et de Design, has been elected to a second term as president of the Alliance numériQC. Newly elected to the association’s board are Tanya Claessens, president of Kutoka, and Rémi Racine, president of A2M, who will serve as VPs. Sylvain Perron, president of Dialex, is also new to the board, and will serve as secretary, and Robert Charpentier of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ will serve a first term as treasurer.

Clarification
The article "Little action seen on new media exemption order as expiration date nears" in the April 16 issue of Canadian NEW MEDIA may have unintentionally left an impression with some readers that the 1999 New Media Exemption Order would expire this year. Exemption orders do not expire, but CRTC policy is to review them every five years. A CRTC spokesperson tells CNM that there are currently no plans to review the order. In the absence of a review, the provisions of the exemption order will not cease to be in force. When the order reaches the five-year mark in December, even if there is no review, new media undertakings will continue to operate without regulation. We regret any confusion we may have caused.

Canada’s music recording industry has asked Parliament to change the ad hoc arrangement by which Internet service providers (ISPs) deal with copyright infringing material online. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) asked a meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to move to a U.S.-style notice-and-takedown regime that would require ISPs to remove any material hosted on their servers when told by a copyright holder that the material is in violation of the law.

Interactive television, the red-headed stepchild of new media, is set to come into its own as several powerhouse organizations will offer Genie award viewers an enhanced version of the staid event. In May, the awards will be broadcast on Citytv Toronto, Star!, Bravo!, MusiMax and Access, as well as on ASN in Nova Scotia, with some satellite customers able to participate in live polling, trivia games and to get additional information about the stars and filmamkers of Canadian cinema.

The Dominion Institute has expanded on its previous VoxPoll SMS initiative with CanWest Global Communications Inc. to launch two new politically-themed projects. The first is a new VoxPoll around the upcoming federal elections, and will see Global National viewers polled on their views about election issues. The second is a new initiative to encourage youth to become engaged with the electoral process by giving federal political parties SMS short codes to communicate with young voters.

In April, The Banff New Media Institute awarded the 2004 Global Television Network Broadcast Communications Award to Michel Blondeau, new media producer and founder of Toronto-based ecentricarts inc. Blondeau will receive $5,000 toward participation in training and mentorship at Banff. While in Toronto recently, Canadian NEW MEDIA asked Blondeau about the prize.

Naked News, a Toronto-based Internet news show, has come out of the closet. A new version will now cater to a gay audience, covering issues specific to that community along with other news. World renowned for delivering the days events in the nude, the new program Naked News Daily Male was launched in March by Naked Broadcasting Network Inc.

The vast majority of Canadians say video games should be regulated by the government to warn users about violence and sexual content they could contain, according to a new survey conducted by Decima Research Inc. for Canadian NEW MEDIA. In a national telephone survey of more than 2,000 Canadian adults over the age of 18, 59% of respondents indicated that they "strongly agree" and 24% "agree" with the statement: "The government should regulate video game content by requiring that games be rated measuring such things as violence and sexual content."