Salon International, Centre Mont-Royal, 2200 Mansfield
Professor Timothy Wu of Columbia Law School will be giving a free public lecture on Thursday, March 22, 2012, based on material from his most recent book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Alfred A. Knopf: 2010). In The Master Switch, Wu speaks of the cycle of monopolization that has beset the development of information technologies from the telegraph to the telephone, and finally, the Internet. Referring to telecommunications giant AT&T, and more recently Apple, Comcast and Google, Wu identifies a cycle progressing from an openly-operated technology to one increasingly controlled by corporations in a closed system. The talk is co-sponsored by Media@McGill, the AHCS Speaker Series, and the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy.
Timothy Wu is a Professor at Columbia Law School where he teaches copyright and communication. He is a McGill University alum, having received his Bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Science in 1995, and a graduate of Harvard Law School. Wu is best known for his contribution to the principle of net neutrality and has also co-authored Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World (Oxford University Press: 2006) with Jack L. Goldsmith.