It's the Wild Wild West. Without Will Smith!

The Internet is sort of like the Wild West. It's a symbol of how far we have come as people since the creation of the United States. I couldn't picture Ben Franklin predicting that we would all be talking to each on facebook or the founding fathers realizing then that the Internet has so much copyright infringement. Sure, there are music laws and piracy laws but there's not a whole lot companies can do to stop the individual from downloading music or other illegal content. I'm not saying that's a bad thing because we are talking about millionaires complaining that they are getting ripped off. You will be hard pressed to find someone who feels sorry for you.

What User Generated Content does is force people to think outside the box. I think it fosters creativity. The best kind of UGC is usually cutting edge and innovative. It's almost sad to see it get ripped, like ESPN's blatant steal of Ed Lover's "C'Mon Son". But like Lawrence Lessig's TED title says, Laws choke Creativity. So go ahead and say "C'mon Man" ESPN. I would much rather have that pathetic attempt to look creative and realize it to be what it is, than some law because laws kill creativity.

So when people post a bad review of a book before it hits the stands, for whatever reason, in an attempt to stop people from buying the book then that's okay. My advice would be to read the reviews and get a general feeling of them rather than reading one review and making an impulsive choice of whether to purchase the item or not. I mean, who can you really trust on the internet anyways? You don't even know those people. They could be from a rival company posting in an attempt to sabotage the product. Or some angry sales person. And we can't stop that. And that's fine. So while it may be the "Wild Wild West" on the internet, it's only because we have much bigger problems in the world to worry about.