PowerPoint Presentation Slide 1

Regulation of the Internet

• Canada ‘s CRTC decided in 1999 not to regulate the Internet : to leave it to open competition
• Australia and Europe are taking very different directions
• 1996 US Telecommunications Act ( calling for deregulation) is opposed world wide:
• It is essentially impossible for one country to act as a content gatekeeper for a world community– Michael Epstein, quoted in Campbell, 57.
• Hate and offensive contents are of growing social concern ( especially sexual predation on the Net)
• 1996 US Communications Decency Act made it a felony to transmit obscene, indecent, or harassing material on the Internet where children might see it: struck down n grounds Internet no different from a book store: not like broadcast ACLU v. Janet Reno, 1998)
• Rise of ‘filters’/ ratings? On line entertainment

“Hacktivism”

• Development of Open Source Code: Linux which is free open source operating system challenges Microsoft
• File sharing “coops” of the type of Napster ( trading MP3s) growing
• “junk” and growth of viruses
• Romantic vision of small content providers surging on the net
• Eg. The ‘garage bands’ now can find an audience; the poet self publish, the digital video camcorder allow the production of broadcast quality documentaries for $20,000 versus 1.2 million in the TV industry
• A technologically optimistic view: technology as emancipatory, “revolutionary” shattering the powers of entrenched business, cultural authorities
• What Winseck in the courseware calls ‘fantasy’

Intellectual Property Law

• Part of Intellectual Property Law
• Governs the realm of inventions ( Patent Law) and brands or names ( Trade Mark Law), Trade Secrets ( Commercial Law) and Copyright

The Canadian Copyright Act

• “protection”
• For the life of the author plus 50 years
• Where the creator has the sole right to perform the creative act, grant permission or a “license” to reproduce it, or copy it.
• What is not copyrightable:
• Facts– but the compilation of them ( i.e how they are interpreted, is)
• Ideas- unless they are manifest in a drawing, paper, or written form ( see Vivian and Maurin, page 365)
• Copyright: important in book publishing, sound tracks to films, films, music
• All TV and radio based on copyright payment to the performers they use
• Increasingly important in international trade, all forms of academic expression