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Could the Web Not be Invented Today?

Posted by Zonk on from the no dept.

An anonymous reader writes " Corante's Copyfight has a piece up about this new column in the Financial Times by James Boyle celebrating (a few days on the early side) the 15th anniversary of Berners-Lee's first draft of a web page . The hook is this question: What would happen if the Web were invented today? From the article: 'What would a web designed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation or the Disney Corporation have looked like? It would have looked more like pay-television, or Minitel, the French computer network. Beforehand, the logic of control always makes sense. Allow anyone to connect to the network? Anyone to decide what content to put up? That is a recipe for piracy and pornography. And of course it is. But it is also much, much more...The lawyers have learnt their lesson now...When the next disruptive communications technology - the next worldwide web - is thought up, the lawyers and the logic of control will be much more evident. That is not a happy thought.'"

13 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. First thing we must do... by Archeopteryx · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...we must kill ALL the lawyers.

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    Dog is my co-pilot.
    1. Re:First thing we must do... by dourk · · Score: 4, Funny

      IANAL.

      Thank god.

      --
      Wake up.
    2. Re:First thing we must do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "What would happen if the Web were invented today?"

      Perhaps we should ask Al Gore.

  2. I just thought by krajo · · Score: 3, Funny

    of a great new way to share stuff on the net anonimously ! Wait a sec there's someone knocking on my front door. Be right back... "And in related news, inventor found lynched by a mob of record executives. Now sports."

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    Learn to separate truth from illusion. Because in this world, it's the hardest thing to do.
  3. What would happen if the Web were invented today? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 1, Funny

    USA would have taken better control of it.

    Oh wait...

  4. Re:What!? by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just wish the rest of the world would show some goddamn RESPECT for the fact that fifteen years ago Tim Berners-Lee, AN AMERICAN, invented the Web while working at CERN, you guessed it, IN AMERICA.

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    PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
  5. You have to take the bad with the good by dadioflex · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too.

  6. Re:It's an impossible scenario by waferhead · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Might as well write an article asking us to consider what sex would be like if we started out by having the orgasm, and then moved on to intimate touching. Easy enough to consider, but so far removed from reality as to be an exercise whose brevity was exceeded only by its pointlessness. Kind of like the exercise being proposed here."

    Premature ejaculation is a medical condition, you insensitive clod!

  7. Oh! The irony! by Mr.Progressive · · Score: 4, Funny

    After killing all lawyers, you're going to need a hell of a legal team...

    --
    Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
    1. Re:Oh! The irony! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Funny
      Judge: You are charged with killing all of the lawyers. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?

      Defendant: Aren't judges lawyers?

      Judge: *gulp*

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:Oh! The irony! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      If all judges are lawyers, you would be innocent under that accusation because you are talking to a lawyer! In that case, even if you are talking to THE LAST REMAINING JUDGE ON EARTH, you are still innocent for having left one last lawyer alive!

  8. Re:Disruptive technologies can't be controlled. by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 2, Funny

    "The next Intranet is being built by a half dozen teenage kids in their darkend bedrooms around the world. It isn't anything now, but will be the biggest thing the world has seen."
    *spits out jolt*
    WHO LET YOU IN ON IT?

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    Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
  9. Re:What!? by Nimloth · · Score: 2, Funny

    So when did he change his name to Al Gore?