[WikiEN-l] It's Only a Theory (and free culture)

[Carcharoth]

For those in the UK who can access the BBC iPlayer, you might be
interested in yesterday's episode of a comedy/debate program called
"It's Only a Theory". The show is obscure, but not obscure enough to
not have a Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Only_a_Theory

Episode 7:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nxks7

That episode featured Andrew Keen (the second guest), who presented
his theory that "user-generated media is killing culture and economy".
He didn't mention Wikipedia (he was more focused on blogs and social
networking sites and free downloads of music), though at the end he
did bring in free culture as part of his argument (saying that free
culture can be damaging). A bit lightweight (the show is part comedy
part semi-serious debate), but interesting.

If you don't want to watch the Andrew Keen bit, the first guest talks
about the threat of bees becoming extinct or seriously depleted, which
is worth watching. For the record, the bee killing theory was rejected
and the user-generated media theory was accepted (again, the voting is
not entirely serious).

Oh, and that page I linked to has a 3-minute clip focused on the
segment "Is User Generated Media Killing our Culture?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00542f2

Carcharoth