A group of Canadian recording artists including Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan have formed a new organization, The Canadian Music Creators Coalition. The group, which has expressed dissatisfaction with organizations such as the Canadian Recording Industry Association, approaches music distribution from a user-friendly perspective, and recently issued a policy statement, excerpts from which appear below. (For more on the issue, see the story on page 4.)

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The Digital Media Association of Alberta (the organization formerly known as Alberta New Media) held its annual general meeting on April 5. Nigel McEathron of Calgary-based interactive marketer RareMethod was named chairperson of the association, while Ken Bautista, president of Edmonton’s HotRocket, was named to the position of vice-chair.

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Bell Fund releases names of 19 winners in Feb. 1 round
Six new media-and-broadcast producers received production grants from the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund in its latest round of funding, including Shaftesbury Films for 11 Cameras, Breakthrough Entertainment for Captain Flamingo, Nelvana Ltd. for Digata Defenders, Productions Pixcom Inc. for Les Superépiciers, and Marblemedia’s This Is Emily Yeung.

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Students at Toronto’s Centennial College will hone their new media chops next week when they begin podcasting the day’s events from the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival.

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Canadian musicians have a new voice, consumers have a new ally, and opinions in the music industry have become further fragmented with the formation of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC).

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Working on tech-intensive projects doesn’t have to mean months of fruitless research and hundreds of billable hours with nothing more than an understanding of what doesn’t work to show for it. Few small and medium-sized businesses take advantage of the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program funds available through the Canadian government.

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 Playing with data, playing with video, flex for everyone and geek art: this year’s FITC (Flash in the Can) Design and Technology Festival offered myriad business, technical, and creative presentations catering to a crowd of enthusiasts of Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software.

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