Video: What SOPA / PIPA Have to Do With Birthday Cakes

What does a bill like the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto — a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

— Clay Shirky’s work focuses on the rising usefulness of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, wireless networks, social software and open-source development. New technologies are enabling new kinds of cooperative structures to flourish as a way of getting things done in business, science, the arts and elsewhere, as an alternative to centralized and institutional structures, which he sees as self-limiting. In his writings and speeches he has argued that “a group is its own worst enemy.” His clients have included Nokia, the Library of Congress and the BBC. Shirky is an adjunct professor in New York University’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he teaches a course named “Social Weather.” He’s the author of Here Comes Everybody, about the power of crowds, and the brand-new Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.