Despite delays, a best practices guide for the Canadian magazine industry is on its way
There are some things that are right about the magazine industry in Canada and some things that need changing. With that in mind, and with what appears to be a goal to establish shared standards, three groups—the Professional Writers Association of Canada, Magazines Canada, and the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors—have been working together on [...]
Masters of our (public) domain
A post by Michael Geist on his blog this week is spreading online and spurring debate about Canada’s public domain and who, exactly, benefits from it. Currently, works enter the public domain in Canada 50 years after the death of the author, which is less than in many European countries and in the U.S., where [...]
Digital publications now eligible in most National Magazine Award categories
The National Magazine Award Foundation opened up the submission process for its 2011 awards yesterday and also announced that this year digital publications can apply to nearly every category. Digital publications can now submit work for consideration in a number of visual and integrated categories, in addition to the written categories that were opened up [...]
What do digital locks mean for you and your work?
Michael Geist is writing a series of posts called The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter. Beginning October 3 and right up to today, Geist is presenting the arguments that various organizations have made publicly against the idea of digital locks, which Bill C-11 would protect, making it illegal for Canadians to circumvent them. (More background on [...]
Writers make a splash at Design Thinkers 2011
The Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario are wrapping up their Design Thinkers conference today, and the Canadian Writers Group helped make it another successful industry event. As the RGD’s official content sponsor, CWG contributed heavily to the conference’s materials. The agency’s writers had a big hand in crafting the Design Thinkers blog and in key [...]
Google brings eBookstore to Canada
Watch out Amazon and Kobo, Google wants its slice of Canada’s ebook retail market. Google’s eBookstore is now open to Canadian customers, offering hundreds of thousands of books for sale and upwards of 2 million free public-domain titles. Google has already struck deals with Canadian publishers big (Penguin, Random House, and Harper Collins) and small [...]
The Copyright Modernization Act: friend or foe?
Yesterday in Ottawa, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages James Moore and Minister of Industry and Minister of State (Agriculture) Christian Paradis spoke to the media about their plan to fast-track Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, and have it passed by the end of the year. The act is, according to many, a [...]
CWG sends “A World Without Words” poster to 2,000 agencies
In April, the Canadian Writers Group announced it had become the official Content Sponsor for the Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario. We told you about the agency’s ambitions to get its writers on the Ontario design community’s radar, producing content for DesignThinkers 2011 and for RGD’s professional development and training activities throughout the year. Continuing [...]
Au revoir, Rue Frontenac?
Rue Frontenac launched in winter 2009 as website for locked-out workers at the Journal de Montreal, offering union information on the conflict between the paper and its unionized workers that began in January 2009. The site also posts general news, offering those locked-out journalists an outlet for their work. A print edition of Rue [...]
Journalists need to brush up on business knowledge, report says
Freelancers have perhaps always known more about the business of journalism than their permanently employed counterparts. But now, at least according to an extensive report from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, all journalists need to educate themselves about where their pay cheques are coming from. This story about the report in the [...]
