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This was a long video (of a lecture) and although many interesting points were made, the crux of the lecture was out of focus for me. The model of copyrighting in an effort that relies on sharing information - as he points out, such as education and science - does not seem to fit. So many people violate it. Yet, I do believe people should benefit from their creativity.

After watching about 15 minutes of this video, I believe the main point of the lecture was to bring the listeners to the point that Copy Right Law needs to be revised and a hybrid created. After all, he is a law professor. Precedents set in a court case or at the US Supreme Court level, means the law is slowly corrected or changed to accommodate new evidence; that it needs guidance from the US Constitution precepts, as determined by the US Supreme Court Justices. Or Copy Right Law changed by Congress and the introduction of new legislation guiding the issue, which in this case would be Copy Right Law and the enforcers of this law, whomever they may be.

Jennifer, Thanks for posting this terrific presentation from Lawrence Lessig! He's one of my personal heroes for bringing up concerns over the growing privatization of information - looking at ideas and creative work as strictly property to be bought and sold. It's interesting that Walt Disney, whose company became one of the staunchest and most powerful advocates for expanding and enforcing copyright law, benefited mightily from public domain stories - Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, to name a few. It's doubtful that Disney would've survived without his release of the first cartoon with sound - Steamboat Willie (with Mickey Mouse). This cartoon took its premise freely from a movie made in the same year with Buster Keaton, called Steamboat Bill. That kind of informal use of other people's idea was common at the beginning of the 20th Century. Now a documentary film maker can be sued for accidentally including a Wendy's or McDonald's logo within a frame. The incredible complexity of copyright law makes it difficult to know what's legal and what's not under Fair Use. Lessig advocates the use of the new Creative Commons copyright designation (CC) - where creators/inventors can designate how their works can be used (non-commercial, commercial, credit, etc.). A great description of how Creative Commons works can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3BrAQl3so I think it's extremely important that folks in the education fields stand firm in their insistence on continuing non-commercial access and use of a variety of media and information resources - it's the lifeblood of our profession - the open exchange and evaluation of ideas. Lessig is looking to build a future that moves us in that direction, while providing Creative Commons copyright protections. He also wants us to actively advocate for changes in the existing (broken) copyright regime and has posted a http://bawolcott.brinkster.net/educ251

Bruce - I tried going to the link at the end of your last post and got an error - page not found.

Ann, Thanks for spotting this glitch! The last line of the post should read as follows: He also wants us to actively advocate for changes in the existing (broken) copyright regime, and has posted a "Certificate of Entitlement" that give us official (tongue in cheek) permission to question the current copyright legal framework. Here's a link to the certificate...

I felt this video had an important message, but it was delivered without foundation. I agreed with the concept of student learning centric education and that the current model of schools does not always reflect this. However, this is not a new concept. Montessori education, for example, has this approach. The reasons for this "factory line" approach, as the video refers to, is multiple factors. I think it is the parents and the teachers and the students. Technology might enable more student-centric education, but there is still individual responsibility.

That gives me a lot of food for thought. While I escape into my virtual world it is not NOT, like second life. I simply go web surfing and find things that need researching when reality becomes so bad, I simply need to get away. I do not have to buy an island or new virtual clothes. I simply have to apply the skills I learned in the university on research, only through a computer rather than a library. That article has me worried for our children. I want more like this to balance what we know on the positive side.

Regarding Turkle's recent article... Back in 1909 the British author, E.M. Forster wrote a short novel called The Machine Stops. The story is quite extraordinary in its early description of the Internet (called the Machine), and a global society that has migrated to to it while the natural world is neglected. Here are some short excerpts... Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk-that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh-a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs. ... it was fully fifteen seconds before the round plate that she held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her. ... She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and attended lectures; she made the room dark and slept. Above her, beneath her, and around her, the Machine hummed eternally; she did not notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears.