Mortal Wombat

A quote I came across today from an old Lessig speech:

“The ideal that seemed so central to killing the closed society of yesterday—property—that ideal is now closing the open society of today. The same tool of freedom of yesterday is becoming a tool of control today. Not the same control, or the same control to as evil an end. But, nonetheless, a control on creativity and innovation; a shifting of that control from individuals to corporations; from anyone to the few.”

Since I didn’t include context here, I should point out that Lessig is not arguing for the abolition of either real or “intellectual” property. He is arguing for the importance of a commons to creativity and innovation, as well as the dangers of a permission society where content controllers exert perfect control over uses of content.

I never post in this thing… Maybe I should fix that.

Anyway, this is another interesting story of consequences when traditionally accepted offline actions move online where they can be more easily monitored. (That said, it sounds like this guy is not completely guilt-free.)

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Facebook : The New Study Hall For The Wired Generation?

Ryerson student Chris Avenir is facing expulsion for taking part in a Facebook study group for one of his engineering courses.

Study groups may be a virtual trademark of the Ivory Tower - but a virtual study group has been slammed as cheating by Ryerson University.

the whole article