Content is King? Depends on Your Point of View

Did you know it was Bill Gates who said the oft repeated media catch­phrase: Con­tent is king? In a 1996 arti­cle by the same name he wrote, “Con­tent is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the inter­net, just as it was in broad­cast­ing. The tele­vi­sion rev­o­lu­tion that began half a cen­tury ago spawned a num­ber of indus­tries, includ­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing of TV sets, but the long-term win­ners were those who used the medium to deliver infor­ma­tion and entertainment.” In his arti­cle in...

When will a Bill on tax averaging for artists become law?

To Fol­low On May 31st, MP Tyrone Ben­skin (NDP, Jeanne– Le Ber) tabled Bill C-427 which seeks to mod­ify the Income Tax Act so that artists can aver­age their income over a max­i­mum of five years. The CCA is sup­port­ing this Bill and we invite our mem­bers to do the same by con­tact­ing the gov­ern­ment and the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans at the oppor­tune moment. This request for tax aver­ag­ing is not new. For years, the CCA and a num­ber of its mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions have been call­ing for this mea­sure that...

Summer Projects

We all know the expres­sion “the cheque is in the mail.” And yet I have never waited for a cheque with so much impa­tience as the one that we received elec­tron­i­cally this week from Cana­dian Her­itage. Along with the mem­ber­ship con­tri­bu­tions we have received over the past six weeks, this brings us until mid-autumn, plus a con­tin­gency reserve of more than three months that we intend to keep and even­tu­ally build on. Already it’s a more com­fort­able sit­u­a­tion than we have been in the last three months,...

10 Cultural Must Do’s across Europe this summer!

UK / The 2012 Sum­mer Olympics; The Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val Fringe The Lon­don Olympic Games is the place to be even for cul­ture freaks! Zaha Hadid’s Lon­don Aquat­ics Cen­tre will remind you of a flow­ing river. Hurry if you want to see the famous works by Picasso, you’ve got until July 15th, or encounter Damien Hirst’s grand exhi­bi­tion, until Sep­tem­ber 9th, both at Tate. To take a rest from the sport mania envelop­ing Lon­don, visit the famous Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val Fringe tak­ing place from August 3rd to 27th....

Share your passion. Develop your audience.

The Public: An Ally first, Then a Consumer

A few months ago a performing arts presenter was telling me that he was very pleased with the attendance rates at his shows which were averaging around 80%. I responded that obviously his venue was well known to the public and that they appreciated the programming.

When the Copyright Bill Will Be Passed and the Not So Positive Aspects of the Budget for Culture

CCA Bulletin 10/12

The Pre-summer Marathon has Begun

We really feel the end of the parliamentary session in Ottawa these days; it’s a race against the clock to break for the summer, either June 22nd or even maybe as early as June 15th...

What are Canadian Heritage’s priorities for 2012–2013?

CCA Bulletin 09/12

May 28, 2012

The Canadian Conference of the arts is hard at work on our detailed federal budget analysis from the perspective of the arts, culture, and heritage for 2012-2013. For a number of reasons the task is particularly complicated this year...

Suiting All Tastes

Suiting All Tastes

This month we talk about a variety of topics with several new collaborators. Don't forget to renew your CCA membership. TogetherCCA!

New rights for performers and producers:

The World Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Organization’s Sum­mit — Take 2 After 12 years of waiting, the Diplo­matic Con­fer­ence on the pro­tec­tion of audio­vi­sual per­for­mances will meet at last in Bei­jing from June 20th to 26th 2012. Based on the arti­cles pro­vi­sion­ally approved in 2000 (19 items out of 20), Mem­ber States will have to con­firm the new arti­cle on the trans­fer of rights,  agree on three addi­tional  joint state­ments and  final­ize the admin­is­tra­tive...

Canada/European Union negotiations – the latest news

Steve Ver­heul, Canada’s chief nego­tia­tor, gave an account to civil soci­ety rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the lat­est rounds of dis­cus­sions by tele­con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, May 3. Over­all, things are not pro­gress­ing as quickly as hoped. Nego­ti­a­tions are prov­ing to be dif­fi­cult on a num­ber of fronts, notably because the Euro­peans must first har­mo­nize their posi­tion inter­nally (at the national and sub national level) before try­ing to come to an agree­ment with us. Fur­ther talks are planned for...