Uploaded November 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Where does all the stuff online come from? And who pays for it? The internet has brought huge changes to decades old models of how things were created and paid for. Important to these changes is the idea of digital representation and copies. Prior to the internet, stealing something meant taking it away from someone else. Now that we can make perfect copies, that is no longer the case. Easy distribution of perfect digital copies has had important positive impacts, including open-source software, creative remixing, self-publishing, and making the overall publishing system much more efficient. Simultaneously, easy distribution of perfect digital copies has created financial problems for creators, disrupted important sources of information, and filled the internet with fake or illegal content. This may be the ultimate Pandora’s box opened by the internet, and we are still far from determining how it will turn out.
Credits: Talking: Geoffrey Challen (Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo). Producing: Greg Bunyea (Undergraduate, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo).
Part of the internet-class.org online internet course. A blue Systems Research Group (https://www.bluegroup.systems) production.
Where does all the stuff online come from? And who pays for it? The internet has brought huge changes to decades old models of how things were created and paid for. Important to these changes is the idea of digital representation and copies. Prior to the internet, stealing something meant taking it away from someone else. Now that we can make perfect copies, that is no longer the case. Easy distribution of perfect digital copies has had important positive impacts, including open-source software, creative remixing, self-publishing, and making the overall publishing system much more efficient. Simultaneously, easy distribution of perfect digital copies has created financial problems for creators, disrupted important sources of information, and filled the internet with fake or illegal content. This may be the ultimate Pandora’s box opened by the internet, and we are still far from determining how it will turn out.
Credits: Talking: Geoffrey Challen (Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo). Producing: Greg Bunyea (Undergraduate, Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo).
Part of the internet-class.org online internet course. A blue Systems Research Group (https://www.bluegroup.systems) production.
