web surfer attention span

• Digital Economy Remixes Outmoded Copyright Notions

[Lawrence Lessig] distinguishes between "read only" culture, the traditional forms that audiences consume passively, and "read/write" culture, forms that allow for remixing and mashing up into creative new expression. Unlike the U.S. novelist Jonathan Lethem, who argued similar points in a brilliant 2007 essay in Harper's magazine about the folly of prosecuting plagiarism, The Ecstasy of Influence, Lessig has a lawyer's feel for language. He usually succeeds at being conversational, but he writes with little regard for verbal elegance. He talks about websites being "architected," and movies and TV shows being "book-ified." Ugh!

... chunks to suit the challenged attention span of today's Internet-surfer. Unlike the U.S. n...

• Winnipeg Free Press
• September 02, 2009