Why has the Internet spawned so much creativity?

Thankfully, this question has many answers. Throughout our history we have never experienced a global communications medium so broad and powerful yet efficient, a universal information space so empowering for individuals, a linguistic tool so dynamic and expressive, and a virtual world so colourful and rich, that we can use to collectively synergize our mind's and our computers' ability to display, discover, meld, automate, and mediate ideas.

But this is a question we should be thoroughly exploring. The future of creativity on the Internet is at stake.

We can understand some of the magic of the Internet by looking at the instruments that sparked its creation - internetworking, distributed software, hypertext, and open standards, for instance. But Lessig helps us to understand that the creativity we have witnessed, especially during those early days of the the Internet, is conditional upon a balanced mix of control and freedom that make up the Net's environment in its broader context. The ingredients of this mix extend beyond the Internet's technical underpinnings and they are by no means guaranteed.

Lessig explores how the Internet can encourage a unique form of innovation....

Removing Barriers - p. 138

The platform of the Internet removes real-space barriers; removing these barriers enables individuals with ideas to deploy those ideas. The architecture is different; the innovation it encourages is therefore different.

This encouragement comes from a number of sources.

First: Because of the commons at the code layer, there is no cop on the block. The Net does not enable control; in this sense, it therefore encourages those ideas that would have been blocked by a system of control. Where many people have to sign on before a project gets going, the opportunity for irrational vetoes becomes quite great (corporations protecting their vision of the market; management restricting how much they want their departments to change).

Second: Because access to the physical layer is so inexpensive, the market linked to this commons is vast. The market for solar-powered Beannie Babies might be quite small in relative terms. But if the market is the whole world, then the Net would encourage what otherwise could not have been sustained.

Third: Because of the character of the code layer, there is an opportunity to exploit a resource that is prohibitively expensive in real space, save for a very large organization --data. Top-down advertising is replaced by bottom-up marketing, which in turn makes it easier for creators without great backing to enter the channel of distribution.

The innovations that I have described (html books, MP3, film, lyric servers and culture databases, new markets, new means of distribution, My.MP3, Napster, New Demand, New Participation: P2P) flow from the environment the Net is. The environment is a mix of control and freedom. It is sensitive to changes in that mix. If the constraints on the content layer are increased, innovation that depends upon free content will be restricted. If the access guaranteed by a commons at the code layer becomes conditioned or restricted, then innovation that depends upon this access will be threatened. The environment balances the free against the controlled. Thus, preserving this environment means preserving this balance.

But nothing guarantees that this mix will remain as it is....