Lawrence Lessig & the Laws that Broke Creativity

This week in Collaborating in Online Communities, we discussed the Copyright issues that have become apparent due to the advancement and accessibility of technologies. Relating back to my previous post about Steve Jobs and tweaking, we have come to a point in our world where all creations are based on tweaking and previous inventions with room for improvement. It is impossible (and unreasonable) to think of an invention in this century that came from a blank slate. With this being said, Lawrence Lessig's TED Talk on Copyright laws was very interesting to me and raised insightful viewpoints that I would like to share on this particular post.

Source: interviewly

There's a lot of growing and extreme controversy regarding copyright issues. One side of the spectrum calls for the use of new technologies to be more restrictive and automatic in the impediment of copyright. On the other side of the spectrum lies a much more liberal perspective that rejects all laws attempting to prevent open use of information online. Lessig calls for a balance between the two. For this balance to be reached between (a) the law that's trying to regulate, (b) businesses trying to profit from their creations, and (c) consumers trying to use current information to elaborate or expand on, he believes that there is a needed change in perception. Authors and creators need to embrace that their work is being utilized and appreciated by the public and see it as an economic potential. This is not to support the discrediting of their work, but simply allowing it to spread more freely, although with some restrictions (not being able to be used for profit, own sale, etc).
This speaker also brings up John Philip Sousa's famous quote about phonographs in the early 90's,

Source: cylinder.de

"These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy... in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left."

We are at a point where we can no longer expect online information to stop growing nor for it to be exclusive. As Lessig mentions, society needs to think of our kids today, in today's conditions, and not the way Sousa underestimated the beneficial power of certain innovations. Lessig closes his speech by requesting for our online community to "open for business," allow the democracy of online information to be spreadable in order to be able to expand, progressed, and improved as a community. This man emphasizes his concern about today's children and implores that having grown to see only technology, there is no rationality in restricting them in their usage of what's available online. 

Lowering the barriers to information and diminishing copyright limitations would not make us a read-only culture. We are a read-write culture that produces and consumes, just not the traditional way people used to "read and write." Memes, opinion articles, remixes, mash-ups, parody videos, are only a few of the many examples of compositions that require creativity and that promote a sense of community and collaboration between users all around the world. Copyright would only limit this development of information and like Lawrence Lessig says, "strangle creativity."

Source: planetsave