Quebec bill would force Netflix, other streaming giants to add more French-language content
Bill 109 would impose quotas on online streaming services like Disney, Spotify and others to make French-language content more visible and accessible for users.
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National Post
30 minutes ago
- National Post
Vision Capital Corporation Comments on Speculated Amendments to Ireland's Housing Regulation
Article content A two-tier system would be folly, and would exacerbate Ireland's housing crisis, not solve it Article content TORONTO — We are very concerned about the prospect that recent press reports regarding amendments to rental housing regulations in Ireland would, if implemented, further exacerbate the nation's current policy-induced housing crisis. Article content Article content Rent control regulations on housing have been a dismal failure for decades globally, and can be observed more recently in Ireland, primarily as they significantly harm those that they are intended and purported to help. Article content If affordable housing is a social and strategic goal for a community and society, then policies that effectively achieve this aim should be promoted, not politically popular yet severely detrimental rent control regulations. To this point, policy should target broader social and economic and considerations: for example, if a society determines it is an appropriate social goal to support lower-income individuals and families with housing subsidies, policies that fund these subsidies would achieve a vastly superior outcome compared to governments interfering in the housing market that, without restrictive rent controls can and will respond to supply and demand forces to increase housing supply. Article content Programs that have successfully increased affordable housing globally include affordable housing development programs, market incentives, integral affordable housing components in new developments, and a variety of innovative and low-cost financing options. Article content In contrast, restrictive rent controls regulations stifle new supply. One cannot solve a demand problem by restricting supply. Doing so does not solve the problem – it exacerbates it. Article content Moreover, rent control regulations create a disincentive to invest capital in maintaining the physical property, resulting in deteriorating housing stock and poor living conditions for residents. To alleviate this significant problem, any new regulations should also include provisions that allow landlords who make bona fide capital improvements to properties, in addition to regular operating maintenance expenses, to apply for what is known in other rent-regulated markets as 'above-guideline increases' or 'AGIs'. AGIs recognize that to facilitate these investments, landlords need to receive a return on their capital invested, in addition to the allowed annual rent increases. Such policies have worked effectively to slow the deterioration of the housing stock. These regulations need to provide more flexibility than the Substantial Change Exemption provision in existing regulations, which generally restrict funding qualification to only the most transformative property changes. Article content The recent report that the government is considering a two-tier system, which differentiates the existing housing stock by maintaining a 2% rent increase cap on existing apartments, while allowing a 4% cap on new developments, is not sustainable and would be folly for at least four reasons: Article content The 2% rent cap is an uneconomic proposition for apartment owners and results in the previously noted underfunding of capital expenditures and a deteriorating quality of housing stock and living conditions. It is essential to appreciate that the vast majority of the affordable rental apartments in Ireland are owned by individual landlords and small businesses. With annual inflationary pressures on their costs and operating expenses, as well as regular capital expenditures increasingly straining their budgets, these owners have been increasingly selling their flats. This market reality further reduces the supply of affordable rental units, and a failure to address these trends will further exacerbate the current housing crisis. As a two-tier system is unsustainable, stakeholders will not trust the stability of the regulatory framework, which, in turn, will create market uncertainty. Market uncertainty impinges on and restricts investment decisions. Therefore, these policies and the accompanying market uncertainty will not effectively increase the urgently needed new supply, once again, highlighting the stark contrast to the stated major policy objective. Article content Politicians and all stakeholders should be confident, if not inspired, that alleviating restrictive and punitive rent regulations can, and does, work. Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, in the United States and Calgary, Alberta, in Canada, are two of the highest population growth regions in North America. Neither of these markets has rent controls. Not only have there been record amounts of new apartments constructed in these cities, but the average monthly rents in these markets are among some of the most affordable relative to other urban centres in the United States and Canada, respectively. Article content We urge all major political parties in Ireland to align together in a non-partisan effort to acknowledge that the facts starkly contrast with the politics and take action to do what is right to enable affordable housing solutions. There is too much at stake at this critical juncture to pretend otherwise. At a minimum, any new regulations must not create a 'two-tier' difference between the existing stock and new developments and should allow for above guideline increases where landlords make bona fide capital improvements. Article content Vision Capital Corporation ('Vision') is the manager of the Vision Opportunity Funds, investment funds that invest exclusively in publicly traded real estate securities. Vision's senior portfolio management team brings over 100 years of collective experience in all facets of property markets and have researched and served as advisors and industry experts on policy considerations impacting the industry for over 40 years. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
CTV News
39 minutes ago
- CTV News
Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry
The desktop and mobile websites for Stable Diffusion are pictured, Oct. 24, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) LONDON — Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry. Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court began on Monday. The trial could last for three weeks. Stability, based in London, owns a widely used AI image-making tool that sparked enthusiasm for the instant creation of AI artwork and photorealistic images upon its release in August 2022. OpenAI introduced its surprise hit chatbot ChatGPT three months later. Seattle-based Getty has argued that the development of the AI image maker, called Stable Diffusion, involved 'brazen infringement' of Getty's photography collection 'on a staggering scale.' Tech companies have long argued that 'fair use' or 'fair dealing' legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices when it filed copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. 'What Stability did was inappropriate,' Getty CEO Craig Peters told The Associated Press in 2023. He said creators of intellectual property should be asked for permission before their works are fed into AI systems rather than having to participate in an 'opt-out regime.' Getty's legal team told the court Monday that its position is that the case isn't a battle between the creative and technology industries and that the two can still work together in 'synergistic harmony' because licensing creative works is critical to AI's success. 'The problem is when AI companies such as Stability AI want to use those works without payment,' Getty's trial lawyer, Lindsay Lane, said. She said the case was about 'straightforward enforcement of intellectual property rights,' including copyright, trademark and database rights. Getty Images 'recognizes that the AI industry is a force for good but that doesn't justify those developing AI models to ride roughshod over intellectual property rights,' Lane said. Stability AI had a 'voracious appetite' for images to train its AI model, but the company was 'completely indifferent to the nature of those works,' Lane said. Stability didn't care if images were protected by copyright, had watermarks, were not safe for work or were pornographic and just wanted to get its model to the market as soon as possible, Lane said. 'This trial is the day of reckoning for that approach,' she said. Stability has argued that the case doesn't belong in the United Kingdom because the training of the AI model technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. Similar cases in the U.S. have not yet gone to trial. In the years after introducing its open-source technology, Stability struggled to capitalize on the popularity of the tool, battling lawsuits, misuse and other business problems. Stable Diffusion's roots trace to Germany, where computer scientists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich worked with the New York-based tech company Runway to develop the original algorithms. The university researchers credited Stability AI for providing the servers that trained the models, which require large amounts of computing power. Stability later blamed Runway for releasing an early version of Stable Diffusion that was used to produce abusive sexual images, but also said it would have exclusive control of more recent versions of the AI model. Stability last year announced what it described as a 'significant' infusion of money from new investors including Facebook's former president Sean Parker, who is now chair of Stability's board. Parker also has experience in copyright disputes as the co-founder of online music company Napster, which temporarily shuttered in the early 2000s after the record industry and popular rock band Metallica sued over copyright violations. The new investments came after Stability's founding CEO Emad Mostaque quit and several top researchers left to form a new German startup, Black Forest Labs, which makes a competing AI image generator. —— Kelvin Chan And Matt O'Brien, The Associated Press O'Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
As the UN Ocean Conference opens in France, a push to turn promises into protection
NICE, France — The third UN Ocean Conference opened Monday as pressure mounts for nations to turn decades of promises into real protection for the sea. French President Emmanuel Macron, delivering the keynote address in the host city of Nice, urged countries to move 'from words to deeds' in safeguarding the oceans. He warned that 'the fight for the ocean is at the heart of the years-long battles we've been waging — for biodiversity, for climate, for our environment and for our health.' The conference comes as just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from destructive extractive activities, according to the nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute. That's far below the target agreed under the '30x30' pledge to conserve 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030. Atop this year's agenda is ratification of the High Seas Treaty. Adopted in 2023, the treaty would for the first time allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean and are largely ungoverned. 'It's the Wild West out there with countries just fishing anywhere without any sort of regulation, and that needs to change,' said Mauro Randone, regional projects manager at the World Wildlife Fund's Mediterranean Marine Initiative. 'The high seas belong to everyone and no one practically at the same time, and countries are finally committing to establish some rules.' The ocean is critical in stabilizing Earth's climate and sustaining life. It generates 50 per cent of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs around 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions and captures more than 90 per cent of the excess heat caused by those emissions. Without a healthy ocean, experts warn, climate goals will remain out of reach. The treaty will only come into force once 60 countries ratify it. As of Monday, just 32 countries had. Advocates hope UNOC can build enough momentum to cross the threshold, which would allow for the first official Oceans Conference of Parties. 'Two-thirds of the ocean is areas beyond national jurisdiction — that's half our planet,' said Minna Epps, director of global ocean policy the International Union for Conservation of Nature. 'We cannot possibly protect 30 per cent of the ocean if it doesn't include the high seas.' South Korea, France and the European Union have championed the treaty, but most large ocean nations have yet to ratify it, including the rest of the G20. Thousands of attendees are expected in Nice — from delegates and heads of state to scientists and industry leaders. The United States has yet to confirm a formal delegation. Moving from protections on paper to something real Beyond new commitments, the conference highlights the growing gap between marine protection declarations and real-world conservation. France, the conference co-host, claims to have surpassed the 30 per cent target for marine protection. But environmental groups say only three per cent of French waters are fully protected from harmful activities like bottom trawling and industrial fishing. In 2024 alone, more than 100 bottom-trawling vessels were recorded spending over 17,000 hours fishing within France's six marine nature parks, according to ocean advocacy group Oceana. 'The government declares these as protected areas, but this is a lie,' said Enric Sala, founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas marine reserve project. 'Most of it is political box-ticking. It's all paper parks.' That criticism is echoed across the continent. A new World Wildlife Fund report found that although more than 11 per cent of Europe's marine area is designated for protection, just two per cent of EU waters have management plans in place. Fabien Boileau, director of marine protected areas at France's Office for Biodiversity, acknowledged the presence of bottom trawling in French protected areas, but said it was part of a phased strategy. 'In France, we made the choice to designate large marine protected areas with relatively low levels of regulation at first, betting that stronger protections would be developed over time through local governance,' he said. 'Today, we're gradually increasing the number of zones with stricter protections within those areas.' France's Port-Cros: A model for conservation While many marine protected areas struggle with enforcement, others show what real protection can achieve. Off the southern coast of France, Port-Cros National Park is one of the oldest marine reserves in the Mediterranean. There, strict anchoring bans have allowed vast seagrass meadows to grow undisturbed. Massive groupers patrol rocky outcrops, brightly coloured nudibranchs munch on algae, and schools of large corbs glide through the shallows, undisturbed by fishing lines. 'Thanks to the protections that have been in place since 1963, we can observe species that are much larger than elsewhere in the Mediterranean and at a much higher density than in other areas,' said Hubert Flavigny, manager of Mio Palmo dive centre in Hyeres, France. Still, such examples remain exceptions. Advocates say industrial fishing lobbies continue to resist stricter protections, despite evidence that well-managed reserves boost long-term fisheries through the 'spillover effect,' whereby marine life flourishes in nearby waters. 'Protection is not the problem — overfishing is the problem,' said Sala. 'The worst enemy of the fishing industry is themselves.' Frustrated by government inaction, environmental groups have taken enforcement into their own hands. In May, Greenpeace dropped 15 limestone boulders into France's Golfe du Lion, aiming to physically block bottom trawling in a marine area that has long been designated for protection. The protected zone was established in 2008 to preserve deep-sea ecosystems, yet 12 trawlers continue to operate there, despite scientific warnings of ecological collapse, according to activist group MedReAct. The Golfe is now one of the most overfished areas in the Mediterranean. What will UNOC deliver? The conference will feature 10 panels on topics such as blue finance, sustainable fisheries and plastic pollution. Deep sea mining is expected to feature in broader discussions, while small island states are likely to use the platform to advocate for increased climate adaptation funding. The outcome of these discussions will form the basis of the Nice Ocean Action Plan — a declaration of voluntary commitments to be adopted by consensus and presented at the United Nations in New York this July. 'There cannot be a healthy planet without a healthy ocean,' said Peter Thomson, UN special envoy for the ocean. 'It's urgent business for us all.' ___ ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Annika Hammerschlag, The Associated Press
