Filing adds to growing list of lawsuits against AI tools
By Ahmad Hathout
A trio of Canadian writers is proposing a class proceeding against Google in Federal Court for allegedly using unlicensed copyrighted works to train and develop its generative AI tools.
Instead of obtaining training data licensed by the plaintiffs and the class, Google knowingly crawls, scrapes and makes copies of the scanned works uploaded to pirate websites, which host versions without the technological prevention measures (TPMs) used to protect them, the May 1 statement of claim alleges. The models learn the narrative arcs and structured texts in…
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Rogers Sports and Media last week announced the greenlight of Deadliest Catch: Northern Edge, a new Canadian iteration of the long-running Deadliest Catch series owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
Currently filming in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the North Atlantic, this eight-episode, one-hour series is slated to premiere in winter 2027 on Discovery in Canada.
Produced by Canadian production company Attraction and Fremantle’s Original Productions in association with Discovery US, Deadliest Catch: Northern Edge introduces viewers to a new fleet of captains, offering fresh perspectives and…
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Bell Media announced Monday it is digitizing its national archive of more than 300,000 tapes to preserve decades of news, music and sports history and is making YouTube the primary home for the content.
Representing 255,000 hours of content dating back to the early 1960s, the Bell Media archive spans an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 physical tapes. Bell Media said in a press release it will convert more than 100,000 tapes by the end of 2026, preserving and reactivating legacy content for modern audiences.
“This ‘hidden history’ is being unlocked using Google’s Gemini models, to generate metadata which…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Culture Minister Marc Miller said Thursday that the $6 billion he said was the projected value of a prospective tax credit for broadcasting news was an “error.”
“On Tuesday, I conflated the projected Film & Video Tax Credits over the next 6 years with the Journalism Tax Credit for the audiovisual news sector, for which we announced consultations in the Spring Update and which has yet to be quantified,” Miller said on X this afternoon. “This error is entirely mine.”
The correction appears to address the confusion about how the minister came up with the figure,…
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Editor’s note: The minister took to X on May 7, 2026 to say the $6B was an “error.”
By Ahmad Hathout
Culture Minister Marc Miller told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Tuesday that the implementation of a federal tax credit for broadcasting news could be worth as much as $6 billion.
The federal government’s spring economic update, released last week, includes a promise to hold a public consultation on expanding the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit – currently reserved for written news – to the broadcasting sector.
“For me, it’s not a question of if, but…
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By Ahmad Hathout
A $600,000 lifeline to a fund that bankrolls public interest participation in CRTC proceedings is again being financed through the authorities of the Canada Media Fund over a two-year period.
“This funding will ensure that Canadian public interest and consumer groups will continue to have the financial support needed to intervene in broadcasting proceedings before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC),” says a January post on the Broadcasting Participation Fund (BPF) website, noting proceedings related to the Online News Act will not be funded through this program.
The details of the funding arrangement are outlined…
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In its spring economic update Tuesday, the federal government extended support for the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Creative Export Strategy, allocating $19 million per year over the next five years to help Canadian creative industries achieve success in the global market.
Launched in 2018 with an initial investment of $125 million over five years, the Creative Export Strategy was previously renewed in 2023 with a further government investment of $57 million over three years.
Canadian Heritage’s Creative Export Canada program, which is part of its…
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Has been a central request of broadcast industry for years
By Ahmad Hathout
The federal government announced Tuesday that it will consult on extending the Canadian journalism labour tax credit to radio and broadcast news production.
The incentive program allows eligible newsrooms to claim a 35 per cent refundable credit on up to $85,000 in labour costs per employee per year for a maximum credit of nearly $30,000 per employee. The credit, which was introduced by the Liberal government in 2019, was increased 10 per cent in the spring of 2024 and is expected to return to 25 per cent for…
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Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller announced Tuesday the members of an advisory panel on the modernization of federal support for the audiovisual sector in Canada.
Miller made the announcement at the annual conference of the Association québécoise de la production médiatique (AQPM), being held this week at the Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau.
The Canadian government is currently reviewing how it supports the audiovisual sector, as “he current framework for federal audiovisual support was built for a different era and needs to evolve so Canadian stories can thrive, both at home…
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Heritage committee recommends copyright protections for content scooped up by bots
By Ahmad Hathout
Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) inquired about what an “opt-out” mechanism would look like for AI-generated news summaries on platforms such as Google, according to a document obtained by Cartt, before the standing committee on Canadian Heritage recommended copyright protections for news content scooped up by bots.
The department, which has been touting Canada’s commitment to AI research and development, had prepared a note ahead of a meeting last fall with News Media Canada, the association for Canadian media that has been sounding the…
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