I had previously made some remarks on the Standing Committee on Canadian heritage and its narrow, corporatist views on copyright, especially for education. Concerns about Canada’s adoption of regulations that will thwart due process over copyright disputes are resurfacing in a variety of sources. See Will Pate’s post for an overview of the issue and links. Mark Federman has further commented, from the perspective of one aspect of McLuhan’s laws of media* – obsolescence:
The way that some legislators and business "leaders" talk about the Internet and copyright reminds me of the Generals during the Great War who refused to believe that new technologies had changed warfare, and continued to send millions of men to be slaughtered against dug-in machine guns. If you think that copyright is an important issue, then please take a look at the various petitions for yourself.
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* McLuhan’s laws of media are presented as a series of questions or probes:
Enhancement. What does the medium enhance, extend, enlarge or intensify?
Obsolescence. What does the new medium make obsolete? When an old medium enters its obsolescence phase, it becomes more ubiquitous, often changing from a utilitarian to a recreational role (e.g. fountain pens).
Reversal. When something is extended beyond the limits of its potential, its characteristics are often reversed. For example, cars which promote greater freedom, when multiplied to the extreme, can result in gridlock.
Retrieval. What medium, that was previously rendered obsolete, does the old medium retrieve from the past? This is usually something from the distant past.
