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CA and NBC controlled radio and television respectively in the earliest days of those media. The enormous cost of establishing telecommunication infrastructures— stringing wires and building transmission towers, for example—encouraged a monopoly model, albeit one overseen by government bodies like the CRTC. The monopoly model survived in North America till the 1980s, when ideological changes favouring markets and technological changes allowing for a decentralization of media effectively ended this pattern. In Canada, for example, this has led to competition in the long distance telephone market where once Bell was the only choice available. c. broadcast trends Broadcast trends today are defined by several developments. First, digitization mean that the longstanding issue of “spectrum scarcity”—the finite capacity of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum to carry sound and visual information—is much less a problem today. Cable, Internet, and satellite transmissions are not dependent on the EM spectrum. Second, with respect to access, the pattern in the early days of Canadian radio and television broadcast (1930s-60s) was to ensure the vast majority of Canadians had access to Canadian radio and TV services. Third, with respect to content, the trend since the 1960s has been to support Canadian cultural industries by requiring Canadian content in TV and radio here. This took advantage of the infrastructure established in the earlier decades to provide programming reflective of Canadian culture, especially in light of the remarkable power and appeal of American media. 2. AC640 reading: Michael Perelman’s “The Ascension of Intellectual Property Rights” a. the history of intellectual property Intellectual property can be defined as “property that enjoys legal protection and stems from the exercise of the mind; [it] includes patents, trademarks, copyright, design protection and some minor rights.” Intellectual property includes media products (e.g., movies, books, music), brands, scientific and technological knowledge, slogans and phrases, even life forms. Intellectual property is of interest to a course in communication and politics because it represents, in purest form, the intersection of law, communication, and economics. Intellectual property law, while it may seem rather “dry” on the surface, is a factor in many of the most interesting debates of our time. It’s a key feature in the peer-to-peer music file sharing controversy, in cloning and other bioethical issues, in the overseas piracy of Hollywood movies, and in high-stakes international negotiations over the direction of world trade policy. Michael Perelman, author of this chapter from his book, Steal This Idea: Intellectual Property Rights and the Corporate Confiscation of Creativity, is an economics professor at California State University. His economics are decidedly from the left of the political spectrum, making him a critic of the neo-liberal economics mainstream. In this carefully argued critique of intellectual property, and specifically what Perelman believes is the corporate takeover of patents and copyright, he offers a historical overview of intellectual property and its surprising importance as an economic commodity and legal issue. b. intellectual property and market failure Perelman argues that intellectual property law originated in “market failure”—that is, instances or areas of the