Random thoughts about the Internet

As far as media are concerned, on the Internet it's enjoy first and pay later (maybe). If I like it enough to want to support your thing.

There are a number of discernable character traits in the Internet culture:

• Disenchantment with absolute authority and absolutist ideologies
• Strong awareness of the distinction between the medium and the message
• Globalism: readiness to dialog with individuals from different cultures - even if the dialogue ends in disagreement
• Readiness to go to the pragmatic but rational bottom of an issue
• Awareness that information is the strongest weapon
• Strong sensitivity to privacy

There aren't only positive traits obviously:

• Intolerance towards n00bs
• Ambivalence towards intellectual property rights
• Attention deficit disorder

Writing a book about the Internet is like making a poster for a movie.

There's an implicit contract between the users of Social Web (aka Web 2.0) applications and the operators of these applications:

Whereas the First produce Content that they want to exhibit online,

So the Second agrees to store and avail this Content on the Internet.

The terms under which this exchange of services is to take place has been the subject of growing scrutiny by privacy-minded groups, intellectual property owners and policy makers, as well as the Netizenry at large in some instances such as the recent upheaval at the Facebook Terms of Use.

The production and licensing of open source software is probably the attempt to formalize this contract. The proliferation of open source licenses clearly shows that a more general framework should be devised. The Creative Commons is certainly the most coherent effort to better structure this implicit contract, as it can apply to all Internet artifacts and creates a logical structure made up of 4 fundamental freedoms, granted by the Author of the artifact to the Licensor. I don't know yet if the CC allows the Licensor to stipulate any right (such as the artifact being legally attributed to the Author), but that's certainly worth looking into.