Sean Shannon has been promoted to managing director of Expedia Canada Corp. He succeeds Stuart MacDonald, who founded Expedia’s Canadian arm, and who has been promoted to senior VP, marketing, packages and Canada, in Bellevue WA. Shannon has been with Expedia Canada since 2001 and was its first director of marketing. Prior to that, he held several positions including VP of business development for Molson Canada. He started his career at Proctor & Gamble.

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NMBA says meetings on tap to fix new media tax credit
Ian Kelso, president of the New Media Business Alliance, tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that Ontario’s Ministry of Culture has promised the group meetings to discuss problems with the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit. The province’s budget in May contained no provisions for fixing the credit, which has long been criticized as poorly designed and of little use to most companies creating new media product in Ontario. CNM will have details if and when they become available (CNM Update, May 20/04).

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A new media startup in Toronto is billing itself as the first production company to make a business of brokering a roster of artists for commercial work. Electric Company, started by executive producer David Chant, has been aggressively adding to the list of new media artists represented by the firm, with a particular emphasis in the latest round of signings on blending broadcast and digital media.

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Musicrypt Inc. has announced Warner Music Canada and BMG Canada as the latest customers for its digital media distribution system (DMDS), a web-based digital distribution network that allows secure delivery of broadcast quality music tracks and promotional materials directly from the distributor to the radio stations.

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Bollyvista.com, an infortainment web site for South Asian communities around the world, launched last month a cross-carrier mobile content store for downloadable media. In partnership with the mobile applications provider m-Qube, the Montreal-based web site makes it possible for its Canadian users to buy and download Bollywood movie images, music and ringtones either on their PCs or directly from their cell phones using the m-Qube ASP-hosted software platform. Digital content from Bollyvista.com now can be purchased with charges posted directly to the customer’s mobile phone bill, and with no credit card required.

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Epitome Pictures has responded to an American broadcaster’s request for content with a television drama that will take on its own reality in the on- and offline worlds and could spark a new model for the blending of music and broadcast content. Pending Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund and Telefilm Canada Canada New Media Fund approval, Epitome’s new show Instant Star could be as much about finding a new distribution channel for pop music as about the travails of its young lead character.

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A representative of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) warned Canadian copyright experts and decision-makers last week that failure to control the explosion of file-sharing will lead to a "collapse of culture." On June 3 in Ottawa, a group of 80 stakeholders in the copyright reform process were told by MPAA executive VP for government relations Fritz Attaway that several technological measures need to be put in place to discourage copyright violation, and encouraged Canadian legislators to reexamine our private copying regime, which is seen by some as being diametrically opposed to copyright protection of works.

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A warm relationship between Chinese technical authorities and Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) has led to efforts to map Canada’s interactive broadcast industry in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The NRC’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) has contracted new media consultants At Large Media, and New Media BC (NMBC) to conduct a nationwide survey of firms involved in the digital delivery of broadcast content, with an emphasis on two-way interactivity.

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