ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines that a significant area of criticism of the Canadian approach, which is with its acceptance of the American fair-use doctrine, has created mischief in Western copyright law and traditional copyright in general. One of the great unquestioned myths about the new technology is that the area is free of ideological presuppositions. The ideology of the new technology differs little from the old engineering ideology. The difficulty with such suppositions is that they are simply untrue. A long-range view establishes clearly enough that the new technology does not so much resolve as enlarge "classical" problems of power and its distribution, wealth and its concentration, or society and its stratification. An inventory of relative costs, rather than an ideology of abstracted rights or responsibilities is an urgent order of business for the concerned with communicating ideas.
