There used to be an expression that flew around in the early days of the internet, especially when it came to file sharing: “information wants to be free.” This is, of course, a stupid thing to say for many reasons, not least of which that it’s a personification; information doesn’t “want” anything. It is not sentient. It simply exists.
What those people really meant is that information should be more accessible, more transparent, and more affordable. After years of being charged $20 or more for ten songs or a movie on a plastic disc, people have embraced the opportunity to download a copy (even if it is not a top-quality one) for nearly nothing. Not surprisingly, those who own the content have fought this tooth and nail, be it the record industry, film studios, publishers; and now we find ourselves in a middle ground where we can obtain much of the entertainment we want sort-of-illegally for free (I use the qualifier because file sharing is legal in some countries, decriminalized in others, illegal in still others); or we can sort-of-buy it legally for a dollar or two (again, I qualify because we don’t so much buy the content as license it, trusting that it will be there in the cloud for us when we want it).
I used to pay about $70 for high speed internet service and another $50 or so for basic cable. Had I sprung for digital cable with movie channels and such, it would have been more like $100. Here in Canada, the television media are controlled by a few large companies regulated by a body called the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC. The CRTC is supposed to regulate these businesses on behalf of the Canadian public, but more often they seem to make decisions that benefit the protectionist interests of those companies, who depend on the income generated by providing Canadian clones of popular American or British series and channels.
There are those who would argue that this system feeds a lot of money into the Canadian entertainment industry, helping to keep all those struggling actors and film crews working, and I’m sure that is true. It is a license condition of those copycat channels that a certain percentage of their programming be Canadian in origin. I don’t want a single precious hair on any single precious Canadian artist’s head to be curled by what I’m about to say.
You see, it occurs to me now that while information may not want to be free, it may very well want to be region-free. It is completely idiotic, for example, that you can buy a DVD in Australia and not be able to play it in America. It makes sense that DVDs may have different formats that reflect the video standards of their home nations – NTSC vs. PAL and what have you. But if you want to import a cool new kung fu movie from Japan, it probably won’t play on your Canadian system. And why not? Not for any technological reason, but because some giant Canadian company hasn’t licensed the content to sell it to us yet.
It is the 21st century. Why are we allowing Rogers, Bell, or Shaw to take a cut of something that they did not make themselves? Why do they get to slap together packages and bundles that ensure a cable subscriber will have dozens of channels they do not want for the sake of getting the few that they do?
This is pretty much why so many of us are “cutting the cord”; cancelling cable entirely and downloading torrents or streaming video through the websites of those copycat networks. But, if some of my friends and I are any indication, the torrenting free-for-all is slowly migrating to content services like Netflix, which- gasp- recommends programs based on what you like, rather than whatever bundles the network wants you to take. Netflix has even started to acquire the rights to new original programming, most famously the cult favourite Arrested Development.
In the ongoing search for more options, some of us have gone a step further and subscribed to a VPN service that allows us to circumvent regional restrictions; which is a fancy way of saying that for $5 a month, I can watch the American version of Netflix instead of the Canadian. And yes, the American one has a lot more options. Do I care that some big corporation that holds the American license for a program is getting a few cents that some other big corporation that holds the Canadian license is not? No. I truly do not give a shit. Netflix is still getting $8 a month from me, and they are able to report and track what I am watching to the people that make the royalties.
This has taken on a new dimension with the recent addition of an Apple TV to my setup, because once the Apple TV has been configured with that same VPN service, hey presto! An app for Hulu Plus appears on the menu. Hulu Plus is sort of like Netflix, except it’s only available in the US and concentrates more on TV, including shows that are currently running. It is also ad-supported. Since it is US-only, it is a little trickier for a Canadian to sign up for it, but it does seem to work (for now anyway) and for another $8 a month, I now have access to new shows from NBC, ABC and Fox, as well as a lot of other smaller networks; plus an assortment of movies, most notably the Criterion Collection, which would be worth the price of admission alone.
So, $8 for Netflix, plus $5 for the VPN, plus $8 for Hulu Plus, and whatever portion of the internet bill I would be paying equals a new kind of cable- digital and tailored to my preferences and devices – for less than the cost of basic cable from a giant Canadian corporation. And since I am paying for those services, the creative folks should be getting royalties somewhere – more than they were getting when I was only torrenting, anyway.
Do you see what is happening, CRTC? Rogers, Bell, and Shaw? You are obsolete. Concentrate on what we now need in this country: reliable high speed internet and related services at a reasonable price. Stop trying to be movie moguls; you suck at it.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: Amy Acker in a film directed by Jason Priestley that has one wildly inappropriate moment after another. Dear Santa is the story of spoiled rich girl Crystal, who is threatened with being cut off by her parents if she does not find some direction in life. As she admires some new shoes in a shop window, a nearby mailman drops a child’s letter to Santa, which is carried on the wind by fate itself and smacks against the shop window.
On the ninth day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: the sequel to a movie I’ve never seen, starring Jenny McCarthy (!) as the daughter of Santa Claus (!!). Mary Class (pronounced Claus) is a high-powered businesswoman in New York as the film opens; her husband Luke (Dean McDermott) is a postal worker who breeds and trains sled dogs. On the verge of closing a big deal with Colin Nottingham (Kris Holden-Reid), Mary is called home to the North Pole shortly before Christmas because her father Chris (Paul Sorvino – !!!) has decided to retire. 
On the eighth day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: “a very special Christmas episode of The Twilight Zone,” which is how Liza McCann (Nicole DeBoer) describes it when she is called out of the blue to visit her estranged father in the small town of Hollyville. She brings her young son Mason, who is excited to see his grandfather and to spend time in a place that not only appears to be crazy about Christmas, but may be the base of operations for Santa Claus himself. 
On the seventh day of Christmas, Netflix sent to me: another ABC Family Christmas movie starring Christina Milian. Needless to say, after the trauma of Christmas Cupid I was reluctant to press play on this one. This time she plays Angie, a streetwise New York deli clerk whose family doesn’t respect her space; you can tell she’s from New York by her Ratzo Rizzo accent.
On the sixth day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: an unlikely tale about ambitious mall manager Jennifer (Laura VanDeVoort), who hires a hot guy from the neighbourhood to dance and show his abs before sitting down to hear the kids’ wish lists; a little eye candy for the moms, as it were. The winning candidate, David (Nick Zano), wants to use his winnings to fund the legal appeal for his family’s business, a local pizzaria threatened with closure so that a new office tower can be built.
On the fifth day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Christmas Cupid is a painful and ultimately offensive remake of A Christmas Carol starring Christina Milian, whose career was looking so promising when she was in Torque. Here she plays Sloane Spencer, a PR executive and all-around control freak whose impending birthday publicity blitz for party-girl ingenue Caitlin Quinn (Ashley Benson, Pretty Little Liars) takes a dark turn when Caitlin chokes to death on a giant olive from her martini. Not to worry, though: Caitlin returns as Sloane’s personal Jacob Marley, presenting her with ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in the form of her corresponding boyfriends. “Change your ways,” warns Caitlin, unable to be more specific than that.
On the fourth day of Christmas, Netflix gave to me: All She Wants for Christmas, a much less lighthearted holiday movie than we tend to expect. Monica Keena (Undeclared) is Noelle, the bookkeeper of a small town family company that makes Christmas decorations. The company is in trouble, she discovers, because the late owner had been subsidizing it from his own personal fortune; but with him gone, his heirs have arrived to decide whether or not the company should shut its doors. This would be a blow not just to the local economy, but also to the spirit of a town that loves Christmas only slightly less than Stars Hollow.
