via Doc, Arnold Kling states in an article that "If you want to overthrow incumbent publishers with Internet-based alternatives, you are better off starting from the assumption that Content is Crap" in reference to Dan Gillmor's enthusiasm for Creative Commons. "The economics of content are that most of the value-added comes from the filtering process, not the creation process." Kling says.
Doc notes that "much snot flung in the general direction of the old content companies" - which I suppose is what comes next from me in Arnold's direction :)
Kling is right in stating that there is a lot of crap out there, but he's mistaken in assuming that a lot of the value-add comes from the filtering exercise. The filtering exercise has only become a value-add exercise because of the crap that is being passed off as content. To be more precise Arnold, lets start off with the assumption that Crap can be Content. Which is a wonderfully compelling illustration of why Creative Commons is "a good thing" (or "productive" as Searls says). We're talking about my Crap here, and now I've got access to a license, a commons, that will provide others with an accessible opportunity to use my Crap in a manner that we can both agree on. And perhaps, just maybe, their use of my Crap will evolve my Crap into our Content - which could be re-licensed, reused, reissued and repurposed under Creative Commons for the benefit of those that appreciate the Content (or view it as more Crap). I guess what I'm getting at is that given enough eyeballs, filtering all crap becomes trivial.
Now get on with it.