Drama, Architecture, and computers

Just came back from a dinner in which I was with Donald Bren (a real estate tycoon who has endowed several chairs, including mine, at UCI) and Robert Cohen, a noted professor of drama. It was interesting to mix discussions about architechture, drama, and computing. A very interesting thing was to notice how people talk about Google. They really think that Google is a great gift to mankind. Coming from so accomplished and older generation, this is really remarkable.

Another interesting thing was a comment that people in entertainment industry really believe that the copyright related problems created by current Internet will be solved by technology rather than business models. I think here technology may not be the only solution; it may be the combination of technology and business models. The current business models were developed long time ago and need to be evaluate given the current creation, reproduction, and distribution technology. Just putting technology is not going to be the solution because in the digital space, it will be easier to develop counter technology. It definitely is an interesting problem, and something that entertainment industry is facing now.

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