Chalk Media has recently appointed Carrie Harrison to the position of director, sales and marketing, and Calvin Mah to chief financial officer.

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Magic Lantern launches new division
Magic Lantern Group Inc., Oakville ON, has formed a new division for the unified creation of catalogue information, DVD masters and online digital streaming files called Parasol Video Inc. The company is seeking financing for the spinoff, with equity positions of up to 50% available. Parasol will offer Magic Lantern partners, educational video distributors and e-learning producers collaborative use of its VideoBase and InSite online video technologies. The goal of the new division is to aggregate, promote and package the largest collected library of online video offerings as an independent or non-specific distributor-affililated company. "Parasol Video follows a scalable business model similar to commercial giants such as Amazon.com. Utilizing our proprietary digital indexing technologies, we are creating a portal that allows for centralized searching and the aggegation of millions of titles from multiple suppliers and producers. The cooperative arrangemet set forth by Parasol Video is revolutionary in that it allows for revenue sharing on a partnership basis to take place among our suppliers, distributors and our competitors," said Magic Lantern president and CEO in a media release.

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In your CNM article noted above and the accompanying editorial, both CNM and Mr. Mark Goldberg suggest that Canadian Internet service providers (ISPs) should adopt a self-regulatory approach to block access to Internet sites containing hate or child pornography and reference is made to Mr. Goldberg being "involved in early discussions around the formation of an industry self-regulatory body."

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Toronto-based Fourth Wall Media has scored a major coup in winning a contract to install a system-wide network of advertising screens in the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) subway trains and stations. The company is currently considering bids from major broadcasters and equipment vendors to provide equipment and content for the network, and has formed a spin-off company to operate it, OneSTOP. Financing for the venture has been secured, and it only remains now to see which companies would be interested in paying to sponsor branded content on the network’s screens, and to provide the screens themselves.

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Canada’s education community is asking Ottawa to enact a controversial new measure during the current round of copyright reform that would give teachers free access to materials found on the Internet for use in the classroom. A coalition of teachers, professors and provincial ministers of education held a press conference on Sept. 22 during which they urged the federal government to adopt a new exception in the Copyright Act specifically for classroom use.

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Canada could be well-placed to take a share of the 2008 Beijing Olympics broadcasting technology dollars in the aftermath of a study that shows a critical mass of interactive-television-related companies already doing business here. A survey conducted by Vancouver consulting shop At Large Media and the National Research Council (NRC) shows 103 different firms engaged in at least one of five different technology activities related to ITV. The study, Interactive Digital Delivery Marketplace: An overview of Canada’s multimedia broadcasting capabilities, is still under tight wraps, but initial results obtained by Canadian NEW MEDIA show a thriving sector in this country. That’s good news for the NRC, which commissioned the report, as it works to convince the Chinese to look to Canada for innovative broadcasting technology through technology transfers, trade missions, and other awareness-building efforts (CNM, June 9/04).

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