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The essence of modern information technology is the
reduction of all kinds of information to digital form. And
the essence of digital information is that it is easy to
copy. Easy duplication is forcing vast changes in modern
society -- both in economic terms and cultural terms.
Never mind the gadgets -- they will continue to get better,
friendlier, and easier to use. We _will_ have Net-connected
devices that are as easy to read in the bathroom as a
paperback or newspaper. But that's not the challenge that
we, and librarians, will have to respond to. What we
will need to figure out is how to create economically
sustainable models for distributing intellectual property
that take advantage of easy copying, and do not attempt to
restrict it.
I will use two examples to illustrate how the principal of
easy duplication is affecting modern technological life. In
one case, the open-source software movement, programmers
have made digital duplication a strength -- the core of a
movement that is reshaping the entire industry. In the
second case, that of Napster and the recording industry,
digital duplication is perceived as a weakness, a hole in
the dike, a threat to big business and artists alike.
Somewhere between those two poles is a place that
librarians and the written word need to coexist.
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http://www.salon.com/tech/fsp
Andrew Leonard is a senior technology writer for Salon.com
and a contributing writer for Wired Magazine. He is the
author of Bots: The Origin of New Species (Wired Books/97)
and The Free Software Project, a history of the the
politics, culture, and economics of open-source software
that is being published in online installments at
Salon.com. He has written for The Nation, The New York
Times Book Review, Newsweek, the Far Eastern Economic
Review, Rolling Stone and numerous other publications.
In a previous life, he was an aspiring China expert, but
became seduced by the Internet in 1993 and has never looked
back. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, daughter, son,
cat, and a few fish.
Author: The Free Software Project
Senior Technology Writer
w. 415 645-9255
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