Read Only Culture
In his book 'The Future of Ideas', Lessig describes modern culture as Read Only. In a Read Only culture, a small professional group produces all the culture that is then consumed by the masses. The public can only absorb and take in the culture, but it leaves no room to interact with the culture. This is analogous to a Read Only CD which allows only the viewing of its content. Modern consumptive culture is a form of permission culture. Advocates of current or expanded copyright policies argue that Read Only culture is necessary to nurture creativity. They argue that without protection of their work, artists would have no incentive to produce original material because their work will be taken and modified by others.
Read more about this topic: Remix Culture
Famous quotes containing the words read and/or culture:
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.”
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