On September 15, Adbusters launched legal action against four of Canada's biggest television broadcasters - CTV, CanWest Global, CBC and CHUM. With prominent civil rights lawyer Clayton Ruby as our lead counsel, they're fighting for the right to buy airtime for our advocacy TV messages, which broadcasters around the world have refused to air. From their site: "How important is this case? For a generation of people, and a growing social movement that sees the media as its main battleground, a victory here will change everything. Without media democracy - which means genuine public access to the most powerful forms of communication - we can't raise healthy children, create good public policy or hold elections that are legitimate or that matter. We lose power to shape our consciousness, our culture and our future. We even lose the power to imagine what that future should look like. Activists concerned with almost every social issue - from the environment, worker rights, electoral politics . . . you name it - have had their messages rejected by media corporations. If you walked into your local television station today and tried to buy 30-seconds of airtime, you would likely get the same response we continually get. Boiled down, the refrain goes something like this: We will not accept your money. We will not accept your messages. We're in the business to sell ads, not spread your ideas. Meanwhile, corporations have virtually unlimited access to the media to push their products and agendas. Rates of obesity and heart disease are soaring globally, while McDonald's spends $1.5 billion a year pushing its high-calorie, fat-laden food on consumers. And yet Adbusters can't buy airtime for our public health spot about the fat content of Big Mac - even though they're based on information available on McDonald's website. But when we win this case, the rules of engagement will be rewritten. For the first time, civil society will be on an equal footing with the corporations. We'll be able to compete face to face, idea to idea, message to message, meme to meme, in the battle for hearts and minds. It will be a different media landscape, one in which we, the people, can share ideas and debate issues that impact our lives. We can start to generate our culture ourselves, instead of having it spoon-fed to us from corporations on high. The case being fought in Canada is only the start, a stepping stone for our larger Media Carta campaign. We're currently building a team of legal experts and activist groups to launch a comparable challenge in the United States." Support them here ...Watch the banned spots here ...