movies Archives - Don Kasprzak

Remember the last time you read a great story that you caught yourself peaking at the remaining unread pages because you didn’t want the story to end? That’s how I can best describe Clay Shirky‘s book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. His stories were coming to a close before I was ready to put the book down.

This is a great follow-up to his first book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Shirky is right on target with engaging, connecting stories to share his ideas about our new ability today to share collective knowledge.

Over 1 trillion hours of TV is watched per year. Imagine what can happen when people turn TV off and begin contributing. And Shirky elegantly shares the shifting nature of professionals vs. amateurs in the age of the internet. Pretty amazing reading.

I believe there have been attempts to move in the direction he outlines but a tipping point has been the mass availability of consumer devices at very affordable price points. I recall Peter Gabriel‘s interview on the Today Show in 1988 talking about the efforts of Amnesty International and their attempts to videotape human rights abuses with large, analog cameras.
Today we know all to well from the murder of Oscar Grant that cameraphones have made their efforts real.

The Napster thing
IMHO Clay’s single oversight in the book surrounds Napster. I think he was trying to communicate a holistic answer to why people (not just Gen Xers) were stealing music. He called it sharing — it was stealing plain and simple.

On my reading list

Looking forward to Larry Lessig‘s new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.

Larry has documented how the music and movie industries are turning students into criminals because they use cheap software, the internet and their creativity. His presentation at TED hilights the core principals of his upcoming book.

The power and impact of the digital economy has placed copyright and the old guard clearly on the defensive. Those aging companies still want the market to be “published” (in analog format) are unwilling to change to the new information economy.
—Well okay what I’m really trying to say is they don’t want to give up their revenue streams.

Okay maybe they do understand how the game has changed, yet I’m not sure the impact of how young people are wired has fundamentally changed their business model.

Actually I’m hoping Remix may also hilight how the RIAA should be chasing down the millions of pirates in China rather than students in America. Larry is proving what everyone under 30 already has accepted as a fact of life…They have never been forced to purchase a majority of their entertainment in analog format. Should be a great read!