“Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation” by JD Lasioca is a new book that offers first-person accounts of how the personal media revolution will impact movies, music, computing, television and games.” Here is an excerpt from Darknet: ‘Darknet’ foreword by Howard Rheingold:
It has taken a decade for people to accept the notion that every computer desktop, and now every pocket and camera phone, is a global printing press, broadcast station, and organizing tool. The early years of the World Wide Web marked a historic shift of power from big institutions to individuals, from those who horde information and ideas to those who want to share them.
No wonder the media powers are in a froth about the Internet.
Now the next phase of digital transformation lies before us, one that involves democratized media, peer-to-peer networks, collaborative tools, social software, and the ubiquitous computing of camera phones; mobile devices; and cheap, tiny chips embedded into our stuff. The outcome of this next phase of the disruptive Internet is much less certain, as battles rage over control of the social, economic, and political regimes that these new technologies will make possible.
How we resolve this culture war will have far-reaching consequences for all of us. Five or ten years from now, who will be able to create and share mediaindividuals, or only powerful interests? When hundreds of millions of people walk down the street carrying connected, always-on devices hundreds of times more powerful than todays computers, what will they be allowed to do?
