The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality – New York Times
David Pogue’s informal experiment on differences in perceptions of what types of copying are “wrong” is a good, quick summary of how younger folks more permissive views. Pogue attributes the difference to the “generational divide” where “the customers who can’t even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*.”
The divide he describes between younger people are more accustomed to technologies that make copying easy and those of us who are used to rules bound to traditional media certainly plays a part. But this isn’t really anything new… young people have been making mix tapes and trading records for years. It might be that wanting to share media is something that is a part of the growing up, personality forming process. How many mix tapes have you made since you were 20?