I had a couple of thoughts regarding this week’s materials on remix culture and copyright law. First, did anyone else draw a corollary between what Lesig said about the “age of prohibition” (Lesig, TED) we live in and drug culture as it relates to legalization?
The arguments he makes against certain kinds of read-only culture remind me strongly of the kind folks make regarding legalization laws: “We need to recognize you can’t kill the instant that technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it; we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again; we can only make them “pirates”– and is that good?” (Lesig, TED).

How do you feel about ordinary people living their lives against the law (Lesig, TED) as it relates to what Lesig discusses? As it relates to drug culture? Do you think that sort of underground realization is equally corrosive and corruptive to a society when it comes to drug culture? (Lesig, TED).

The other thought I had while watching the presentation and looking over the reading was about intellectual property at large. Nothing exists nor is created in a void. Everything piggy-backs on prior developments and discoveries: how do you think this idea should influence copyright law? Or how not?