via Darknet, 2/16/06:
Lessig makes plea for Read/Write Internet
InternetNews.com: Lessig Makes Plea For Read/Write Internet. Excerpt:
Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig warned that today's fast-growing, free-wheeling Internet is threatened by network providers who want to control innovation and commerce on the Internet much the way AT&T once controlled the phone networks.
Speaking at the Open Source Business Conference here, Lessig said society has to decide if it wants to continue down the current path of a "read-only" Internet or embrace what he called a "read/write Internet" with broad access to content and the ability to legally build on the creative works of others.
Lessig did say he wasn't in favor of content being entirely proprietary or entirely free, but he fears the repercussions of the former being the dominant business model.
He cited Apple's popular iTunes music store as a perfect example of the read-only Internet.
"It's a massively efficient way to get content to consumers they can buy easily," said Lessig.
And the Internet is enabling other new streams of commerce for content providers. Lessig noted for example that Amazon is experimenting with a pay-per-page model for books.
"This read-only Internet is supported by copyright law to perfectly control how people get access," he added.
reBlogged via Lessig blog:
I wrote this piece for the FT about the next war in copyright. If you’ve not seen AMVs, you should. Look here.
This will be the next big copyright war — whether this form of noncommercial creativity will be allowed. But there will be a big difference with this war and the last (over p2p filesharing). In the p2p wars, the side that defended innovation free of judicial supervision was right. But when ordinary people heard both sides of the argument, 90% were against us. In this war, the side that will defend these new creators is right. And when ordinary people hear both sides, and more importantly, see the creativity their kids are capable of, 90% will be with us.
I saw this first hand in the eyes of a father. From the FT piece:
But to those building the Read-Write internet, economics is not what matters. Nor is it what matters to their parents. After a talk in which I presented some AMV work, a father said to me: “I don't think you really realise just how important this is. My kid couldn't get into college till we sent them his AMVs. Now he's a freshman at a university he never dreamed he could attend.
These are creators, too. Their creativity harms no one. It is the heart of a whole new genre of creativity — not just with anime, but will all sorts of culture. If, that is, it is allowed.
Update: A relevant City of Heroes video on in-game IP.
posted by [ Lessig ] on [ Jan 17 06 at 7:20 AM ] to [ bad law ] [ 33 comments ] [ post diffusion: 1 trackback + technorati ]
