It is difficult to ensure that a particular region becomes the primary benefactor of technological innovation, it is easier to ensure that innovation is not stifled.

When looking at the IBM PC it seems clear to me that the success of the PC vs Apple was due to the open architecture of the hardware. Apple had(s) a much stronger OS, a more devoted following, and a longer history. When IBM opened the architecture, everyone started making PCs, and the market exploded.

In a closed environment one entity makes a little money. In an open environment everyone makes a lot of money.

The key then, is to ensure that the Internet remains free, uncensored, and neutral, and to ensure through strengthened antitrust laws, that no one entity gains too much control.

1. firstly the notion that competition is necessarily a good thing needs to be examined? Perhaps cooperation across Canada would be more advisable.

2. Secondly, investment will follow good ideas, and the ownership of them. So some form of private property as applies to idea is necessary if we expect the private sector to participate in this. In the case of R&D there has been precious little of this. so we cannot expect the multinationals to respect our country or to invest here when they can dump American, British, Australian or French content on us. There must be a requirement that cultural players in the Canadian market are active in the market in the development of media, cultural products, etc. This means that the CRTC rules on Canadian content need to be tightened for all forms of distribution of content. It also means that in an ipod environment, Canadians need to be given reasons to participate in Canadian culture even if only as consumers.

The key to fostering competition and investment will be to establish clear and consistent rules that prevent companies from unfairly attacking each other's business models.

Legislation should contain an explicit list of protected uses and forbidden uses to which individuals and organizations can put copyrighted work.

Legislation should establish a notice and notice system so that innovating companies cannot have their business unfairly stifled by spurious claims of copyright infringement.

Copyright cases should be handled as matters of civil law with the copyright holder seeking compensatory and punitive damages, but no statutory damages should be established in law.