Pressure time

And speaking of policy choices that seem to be based largely on protecting monopolies at public expense, Michael Geist reports that the Harper Cons plan to introduce yet another copyright bill that attacks consumers for the benefit of corporate distributors.

I'm less surprised than some that the Cons' "consultations" have led them back to exactly where they started: if anything, the time period since the consultations ended probably gave them a reprieve from the pressure that forced them to back off in the first place. And the fact that the Cons have gone back to the anti-consumer model should send a strong signal as to whose interests they'd most like to favour.

But it's worth remembering that it was the Cons themselves who chose not to push their first DMCA clone due to the resulting public outcry. So in addition to the entirely reasonable prospect that the opposition parties could team up to kill the bill, it shouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility that the Cons themselves will at least seek to buy time again in the face of another backlash.