In his article “Managing copyright in a digital world” Nicholas Bentley talks about contribution chains. In the digital space value is embodied by “Intellectual Contributions” (e.g. payments, reviews, criticism, recognition, quotations, citations, and recommendations) rather than in the form of “Intellectual Property”.

If this model holds, it means that value-chains in the digital space need to be constructed as contribution chains (from the End-users to the creators of content) and not as distribution chains any more.

DRM

Having discovered the Cybernetic Manifesto once again I realize that I need to rethink the goals of the Digital Media Manifesto. In their Principia Cybernetica Project the architects of the Internet proposed a consistent system of philosophy addressing what they called “the supreme human values”. I live in a capitalist system in which money is necessary for survival, another supreme human value. The infrastructure is mainained by human beings. Is money therefore necessary for survival in the cyberspace (cybernetic immortality)?