The world is changing. As some of my kids would say: “It’s a mood”.

Was trying to remember when I first did legal work on a media file. It probably was 39 years ago. Change, rapidly accelerating change (or the invocation, true or not, of rapidly accelerating change) has always been part of the landscape. Still what is going on in the world today with questions of regulation, accountability, privacy and free expression being so intertwined, especially with respect to “social media”, it truly feels like we have arrived at a whole new level (to use the video-game motif).

So this does feel like an important time, an important semester, and an important year in the trajectory of communications law. Arguably, there never before has been a time where it will be as easy to identify and understand the impact of what is included in communications law and policy, and what currently is not, on the worlds we live in. It’s all in pretty sharp relief at the moment, making the subject easier to understand. Whether it makes good answers more or less accessible remains to be seen.

Parenthetically I was watching a U.S. all-news channel while writing this. In a very small focussed way,  some fundamental conundrums about our area of study came into sharp relief.  Because the technological feat I was watching through my “cable” providers app on my iPad would have seemed like magic  just a few years ago, it seemed worth capturing as a useful starting point for a future class on how communication through technology redefines that communication in ways we don’t always immediately comprehend. In other words that technology is a language beyond language, one with massive impacts on what we  understand. So I decided to take a screenshot for some upcoming slides.

But then something happened. Something I didn’t and still don’t understand. Something that in its own way is fundamental to communications law and policy in Canada. It may be a small thing, but depending on what’s actually going on, it may also be bigger than it seems.

Here’s what happened when I tried to take a screenshot…

So after a couple of tries, I grabbed my phone to take a photo of my iPad screen. By now the remarkable digital technology feats I was intending to capture had receded into the background of my mind. Did get my shot in time though…

There are several obvious questions:

• Why couldn’t I take the screenshot?
• Is it due to a law or policy requirement of the CRTC or pursuant to the Copyright Act?
• Or was it because of my cable tv provider or because of Apple?
• Or is there something else?
• Am I stupid for not knowing why? Have I been clearly told somehow and somewhere? Was it in the fine print of something I agreed to without reading it?

So where to begin in any analysis? Perhaps by understanding the differences between laws and rules. Laws being promulgated in a democracy on behalf of citizens. Rules mostly being promulgated by media companies to benefit their shareholders. Following and separating these threads may well lead us to some interesting places…

Welcome to the adventure that is Communications Law January – April. 2021. We have arrived at the next level…

Jon