Intersting observation by Lawrence Lessig questioning what does it “really mean” to be Web 2.0. He coins the term “fake sharing.” One true hope of Web 2.0 was that it would open up easy sharing of content between users. YouTube gives users the illusion of sharing content, but ultimately the content is all stored on YouTube. Plus, with the copyright issues, it’s possible the content couldn’t realistically be shared for fear of lawsuits. Yes, there are ways to suck down the YouTube content, but that’s not being done by YouTube.

I have to say, I think there will always be a conflict between content creators and the users. Users want everything for as low a price as possible, while businesses and content creators have to make money somehow. Apple with iTunes and the iPod has to walk the fine line between keeping the entertaiment companies happy and allowing the users to rip, mix, burn. Their solution seems to be relatively non-intrusive DRM and making purchasing of content really, really easy with impulse-friendly UI design.

The tricky problem with YouTube is that it has a mix of user-created content and copyrighted content. A more friendly sharing type thing could easily be set up if the content were more of the former than the latter. Maybe this is the direction YouTube will move in, now that it is owned by Google and is moving to get rid of all its copyrighted content. We’ll see.

Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock.

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