The influence of the internet has reached into every major domain of our lives: business, education, social networking, romance, parenting, banking, marketing, advertising, recreation, travel, news and reporting, arts and culture, politics, information gathering… and the virtually unstoppable dissemination of culture.
The advent of ‘Web 2.0’ or Read/Write Web (Berners Lee, 1999) has seen users take control of new communication technologies and challenge the media user/producer dichotomy that epitomised web 1.0 in its heyday.
In an interview with the BBC’s Mark Lawson, Tim Berners Lee shunned the idea that debate surrounding Web 2.0 is simply a question of weighing up the advantages and disadvantages and deciding whether or not it would be better to “turn the whole thing off” (2004). Berners Lee describes this latest evolution as the progressive fulfilment of his original conception of a user-friendly web. When asked if exposure to unsolicited content and the risks of identity theft outweigh the social advantages of Web 2.0, Berners Lee suggested that the current web network simply “…allows people to do what they want to do more efficiently… in an information space which doesn't know geographical boundaries” (2005).
Just as in the ‘physical reality’, then, the onus for protecting the interests, property and safety of users is firmly on the users themselves. Enthusiastic media users crossing the divide by producing and distributing their own original material on the web may be less aware of the possible drawbacks, however.
Many users will be familiar with persistent junk mail and chain mail messages forwarded to them by supposed friends, as well as viral agencies hoping to create potential ‘viral hits’ for a range of businesses (The Oxford Dictionary, 2010). Musicians, artists, authors and filmmakers too are locked in a love-hate symbiotic relationship with ego-centric users: they both depend on and prohibit the file sharing or virtual ‘word-of-mouth’ necessary for popularity and success.
At issue here might be described as a case of content mediation catching up to technology. One outcome of the ‘virtual gold rush’ of intellectual property exchange, transfer and storage online is a growing tension between accessibility and ownership of digital content in cyberspace; between who owns content in cyberspace and who should own content in cyberspace (Bennett, 2000). The tension expands today as users, lawyers, companies and other bodies disagree over the translation of traditional intellectual property law to digital communication media.
Oliver Bennett of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University proffers several alternative approaches to intellectual property protection more suited to digital works, including the various licenses of the Open Source Movement (2000). This movement has generated provisional permissions from content-authors for other users to copy, download, share, and/or modify their works and any underlying source codes. Founded on the idea that the sharing of information is a crucial part of disseminating culture amongst and across generations, there is an underlying assumption here that ‘network effects and ethics’ will encourage users to honour the relaxed approach to intellectual property rights (Bennett, 2000).
Reference List
Bennett, O. (2000). Intellectual Property in Cyberspace 2000: Alternatives to Intellectual Property.
Retrieved September 9, 2010, from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property00/syllabus/
Berners Lee, T., & Fischetti, M. (1999). Weaving the Web: The Past, Present and Future of the World
Wide Web by its Inventor. Britain: Orion Business.
Lawson, M. (2005). Berners-Lee on the read/write web. BBC News. Retrieved September 9, 2010, from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4132752.stm
Oxford Dictionary. (2010). Oxford Dictionaries: Viral. Retrieved August 20, 2010, from
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0929700#m_en_gb0929700
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