Week 6 #15 Copyright, Commons, and What's coming down the Web 2.0 road?

I read Lawrence Lessig's blog only to learn that he is shutting it down forever after working on it for seven years. This statement only reinforces the idea that blogs come and go and take on a life or death of its own. In addition, Lessig also pointed out that in that seven year period, there were 30,000 comments and of those 1/3 if them were fraudulent and that Google had kicked him off their index because too many illegal casinos were linking to his server. The idea that 1/3 of 30,000 comments were fraudulent serves only to reinforce the question of how valuable and valid are these blogs (and on-going research projects). This idea is particularly true because it calls into question the validity of one's research efforts when it is based on fraud.
Neverthess, the important question here is the idea of copyright, commons, and the future. The video about copyright is dead on target as it seeks to explain the nature of copyright and why it is important. Some of the animation may obscure the most important aspects of copyright, however. Copyright is important as it is subtle. I remember a few years ago that a popular TV series Murder, she wrote was orginally scheduled to be called Murder, she said. The network decided against that title because of copyright infringement on the movie series with Miss Marple which was called Murder, she said. In addition, students need to be taught the nature of copyright and what it involves in order to prevent "borrowing" from sources and then having to defend onself by claiming ignorance of the law.
It is anyone's guess as to what is down the Web 2.0 road, but it will no doubt be decidedly different then than it is today. When one looks at the service of the libraries of the past and what it is doing today, one would have to agree that the basic nature of the library has changed drasticallty. With the advent of electronic books or ebooks and papers, the library will have to change again to accomodate these latest innovations. Even the Web 2.0 project has changed since we first began our operation because it has been modified to suit our individual needs as we prepare for our teaching roles of the future. Web base 2.0 now features a host of social networking sites which never existed a few years ago but they within themselves will eventually change and morph into something else down the road. Again, just look at the cell phone of a few years back and examine it in the presence of what it does today as an example of change and reconfiguration.