By Angela Gunn Alas, that would be a literal torch, thanks to Second Life -- Lawrence Lessig, the prime mover behind the Creative Commons movement, really did hand a visible torch to Joi Ito Friday night to signify handing off chairing duties for that
organization. I miss metaphor, don't you?
Still, in a weekend oversaturated with no-less-overwrought-for-being-overdue tributes to user creativity throughout the Net (I knew it was going to be a long one when a music critic of my acquaintance breathlessly announced that YouTube and MySpace were his Artists of the Year), I like this one.
It's YouTube and MySpace that got the attention this year (blogs having had their gee-whiz moment a minute back), but the foundations of those services are shaky, precisely because they are in many ways predicated on material that could get lawyered up at any moment. The Creative Commons movement is lawyered up. Creative works with a CC license are genuinely part of the promise of user-generated content, because CC-specifying copyright owners have taken care to say exactly how their works can and cannot be remixed, reused and reproduced.
That, to me, is a strong and healthy foundation for Web 2.0, or user-generated content, or what you will. And it'll advance the cause a lot fast than any foolish X-of-the-Year awards.
