Source : Globe & Mail

Search Engine, the CBC Radio 2 show about technology and digital culture, has been canned. Host Jesse Brown made the announcement at the end of his last show this morning.

The show has just won a New York Festival International Radio Award, and was the most-downloaded podcast in the CBC's news and current affairs category.

Brown described the event as "the last episode of Search Engine ... as you know it."

He said elements of the show were being scattered to other more general-interest shows, with Search Engine-type stories appearing as items on other shows. And that they would, at the end of the week, be packaged as a podcast.

And that's an effective death notice, because the only person left from the show next season will be Jesse Brown, without the production team that helped the show be so popular.

Fittingly, the last show ended with a startling interview with Industry Minister Jim Prentice, who had tabled a contentious bill to revise the Copyright Act last week. Prentice promised Brown 10 minutes, tried to explain that the bill is "very technical," mumbled some answers, and finally hung up on Brown.

Hardly seems like a person determined to sell his legislation.

Interestingly, Prentice's most specific answers emphasized that the legislation has little to do with the government. There is, he said at one point, "no intent on the part of this government to send someone over to inspect your iPod." Later, he said that "the only one who can prosecute is the owner of that work."

It's a pity Prentice hung up before Brown could ask his most important question — how would this law be enforced?

From my understanding of the interview, Prentice said exactly who will "send someone over to inspect your iPod" — the owner of the work.

Can you see Avril Lavigne pounding on your door to see if you have a song by her on your iPod? Celine Dion? Gord Lightfoot?

There are only a few people who can do that, and that's those who have the cash and the determination. In other words, we're back with the association of music labels and the movie and TV industry. These people have armies of lawyers and agents who believe they can identify who has illegally loaded content (although they have shown a remarkable lack of accuracy in the UInited States, where they have the fereedom to prosecute.

Prentice was in a hurry to assure us it wouldn't be the government's job to enforce the law, but that "the marketplace" would handle it.

Aren't we relieved.

© Globe and Mail