Freakonomics on Libraries
July 10, 2007

In light of my recent absence, I thought that I would link up a nice article that I found over at the Freakonomics blog. They recently wrote a quick piece on how difficult it would be to start a system similar to the public libraries in today's IP climate. It is really interesting, and important, to think about how today's laws and regulations are restricting the intellectual growth of the future.

Libraries serve a number of purposes. One, they allow the citizenry access to media. This allows individual citizens that ability to learn from copyrighted works (you know, that thing the government invented to encourage the betterment of society through more creative works) and develop themselves personally without being forced to pay large sums of money. This is especially important in individuals who do not have necessary funding for such endeavors, such as those from low-income families, children and even the elderly.

There is, however, a second and incredibly important purpose that libraries serve; that is preservation of society both for its own sake and for future historians and scholars. You see, without libraries many classical works would simply be lost by time crumbling away on someone's shelves. However, with the ability to disseminate these media to citizens it is able to reach out and be continued - both from the protection of a central repository and from the sheer access.

As an intellectual person living today, I'm forced to wonder just how today's society will be preserved in this fashion. With modern copyright restrictions in the draconian state that they are, even backups of software are illegal. When my old Doom disks finally disintegrate, shall I be forced to violate federal law in order to preserve a crucial branch in video gaming history? Or will it slowly fade into the background and disappear?

You may say, "hogwash! Video games and movies are nothing but trash and violence that are for little whippersnappers to kill their brains with!"... but remember that Shakespeare was trash in his day. He is now considered to be a literary flower blooming brightly with every "where for art thou Romeo?".

So, to the great series of tubes I commit this fluttering thought... short of becoming criminals, how can we preserve our own historical heritage? How will our kids listen to Eddie Van Halen and play Doom to see what daddy grew up with?