I just watched this documentary and it almost moved me to tears. Ok, not tears, because it wasn’t sad, but while this movie is mostly about patents and copyright infringement, even if they don’t know it they summed up why there is going to be a revolution in the next ten, twenty years tops.
The printing press caused a revolution because people could now freely spread ideas with each other. People learned to read for the first time ever, they became literate, the became participants in the discussions of the time. But only a few people can own printing presses, or, as it’s evolved since then into TV networks, newspapers, and  radio stations… all forms of mass communication required a central source.
Except the internet. On the internet, it’s peer to peer. Anyone can be a creator, and we’re finding out that the human race is really fucking creative.
And we do it just like they always have, by building on what came before us. Led Zeppelin took old blues songs and made them rock n roll. DJ’s take old songs and make them new again. You Tube is full of people including myself, who take images, songs, words, phrases (I didn’t come up with Bigger Cages / Longer Chains, it’s the name of a International Noise Conspiracy song) and mash them up together in new and creative ways to spread THEIR message. To get THEIR point across.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the internet has democratized media. The effects are starting to ripple out slowly, but as the old get older and the young get more numerous and more powerful, expect to see huge changes in the ways we run our planet. This revolution is global and I can’t fucking wait.
So go watch this movie, please, you can find it on torrent sites or even on their site http://www.opensourcecinema.org (look for the ‘watch all chapters’ section).
Open source… freedom from copyrights, patents, and intellectual (and in my opinion, all kinds of ) property is the future. Whether the establishment wants it or not.
