Radio Canada International Experiments with Time-Shifting: Ends Up in the Past

Radio Canada International (RCI) Broadcasts in Shortwave around the world. They produce superb daily programming in English, French, Spanish, and other languages. They have a well deserved world-wide following.

They also broadcast online. Their programs used to be available for download in mp3 format. It was great to download a weekend review of the news in Spanish and listen to it while exercising or driving or sitting in the shade. The new world of online broadcasting was wonderful.

Then one dark and stormy night RCI reported they had some copyright issues. Changes were in the wind. What would be their response? What would some of broadcasting's brightest minds come up with? How would they lead us through to a new age of media dissemination?

The media savvy use and interact using a half-dozen delivery modes, often in one day. Millions make their own 'casts of one sort or many. These new Sociocasters insist on choices. If the choice isn't there they'll go elsewhere or more than likely they'll create a new format to get what they want. For millions this is not the future, this is the current base-line.

In the context of these trends, RCI reviewed their copyright issues and came up with a brilliant set of recommendations. They came up with a truly lateral conclusion. They stopped making broadcasts available for download. The exact title of the report was something like, An Off-White Paper on Copyright Solutions by I. Mann Ostrich, LLB.

Now if a quick check of the archives reveals broadcasts only up until 2006.

Listeners want more choices not fewer. They find it irksome when a public broadcasters tell them that the only legal way to use their services is to chain themselves to computer workstation. They don't need infinite choices. So...how about two choices? One of them portable.

Take your heads out of the sand RCI. You can figure out a better solution. Put those heads together where they belong.