Copy Cat

I listened to that flash presentation but I still don't really get what Lessig really meant by it all. If anything I think I get his refrain:

1)Creativity and innovation always builds on the past
2)The past always tries to control the creativity that builds on it
3)Free societies enable the future by limiting the past
4)Ours is less and less a free society

More and more creativity is becoming entangled in all the rules it has to get through. At the first sign of similarity all hell breaks loose and fingers are pointed. Big labels steal from indie artists, the little guy gets screwed by the faceless corporations that have more power.
But the stuff out there seems all the same anyways; there's just a ton of crap out there.

In general, I believe there should definitely be laws to protect others' creations, but innovation shouldn't be suffocated by these laws. I think people have mainly gotten it right with things like patents expiring after awhile to make room for improvements.

It's just a whole messy ordeal.
There's just so much that can be written/painted about anyways before it starts to seem familiar. There's just enough imagination left though in order to not make it seem blatantly the same.