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Lessig on Innovation and the Read-Write Web

If you think web 2.0, YouTube, public policy, innovation and anime have nothing to do with each other, think again. If you think law and public policy are dull, he may change your mind. I stumbled on this lecture by Lawrence Lessig on the topics of innovation and how we got what we have with the read-write web. It's a great talk that could be sort of summed up as web 1.0 vs. web 2.0, consumer versus creator, and consume versus consume-create-share (and recreate). And how web 3.0 could end up being web 0.5 if we aren't careful.

Funny note: Lessig used the example of John Philips Sousa trashing the infernal music machine, an example I've used in open source talks I've given. His version is better because he concludes that Sousa was right :-) At least now the infernal machines can give us back what they took away a hundred years ago. Of course Lessig is more pessimistic. His official title for the talk is "The Withering of the Net: How DC Pathologies are Undermining the Growth and Wealth of the Net." and his view is that the last 4 years have eroded the economic and innovation progress in this country.

There are a bunch of other Lessig lectures on Google video. I like his performance in this one.

Posted by Mark Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:49:00 PM | permalink |