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8
Strategies for a Generative Future
Even if the generative Internet is preserved, those who stand to lose
from the behaviors taking place over it will maintain pressure for
change. Threats to the technical stability of the newly expanded network
are not the only factors at work shaping the digital future. At the
time of the founding of the Internet and the release of the PC, little attention
was given to whether a system that allows bits to move freely
would be an instrument of contributory copyright infringement, or
whether it was necessary to build in mechanisms of government surveillance
for the new medium. Now that the PC and Internet are in
the mainstream, having trumped proprietary systems that would have
been much tamer, there remain strong regulatory pressures. This
chapter considers how the law ought to be shaped if one wants to reconcile
generative experimentation with other policy goals beyond
continued technical stability. For those who think that good code and
content can come from amateur sources, there are some important
ways for the law to help facilitate generativity—or at least not hurt it.
And for those whose legitimate interests have been threatened or
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