This video from Ted Talks discusses the restrictions put on content and how it limits creativity.
Larry Lessig starts off by telling three stories that centralize around a similar argument Laws That Choke Creativity. One of the examples is about the invention of airplanes and how it posed the threat of “trespassers” on people’s property. The law that applies to land and personal property is that if an intruder sets foot on your property without permission, they are considered a trespasser. Lessig explained that common sense tells you it would be ludicrous to apply this law to planes. If we needed to get permission from each individual in order to fly over their land that would be quite ridiculous. It just doesn’t make sense.
The same idea applies to the Internet. Sometimes piracy laws and strict regulations begin to interfere with the creative process and just don’t seem to be rational. For example, if you go on YouTube there are many videos made by individuals who haven’t originally created the content, but have redone older videos. It may be seen as stealing, but common sense tells you it is merely recreating content, not stealing the exact idea and portraying it as their own. All these piracy laws may have good intentions, but it limits the creativeness this generation could have.
Lessig talks about the read/write culture and how years ago we lived in a write only culture. Early on, around the Renaissance era, new ideas were evolving rapidly. As time went on we became a read only culture and nothing new was being created. And now the Internet has the potential to restore the read/write culture with all the content that can be accessed with a click of a button. People are not only able to access tons of information quickly, but are also generating new ideas just as fast.
This article made me wonder what we could be doing as a business to attract more customers. Video can be a powerful tool and if a business recreates a popular video, it could be a great way to gain exposure. Have you seen any videos businesses have posted on YouTube or Facebook that have sparked your interest?
