Though the notion of the internet as modern-day printing press is by now little more than a truism, New Criterion editor James Panero has taken an unusually deep look at just what that means for what he calls “copy culture” and the future of information. Drawing on the differences between the self-contained book and the massively networked internet, he discusses both the benefits and dangers of new publication methods. “The rise of the internet will no more destroy literature than did the invention of the printing press,” he writes, and it offers access to information like nothing before it, but it also poses challenges for archival and institutional memory. “As we drive technology forward, an equally important task is to preserve the best of what’s left behind.”
From computer to printing press, the opportunity and danger of ‘copy culture’
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
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