As I was pulling into a coffee shop near my house early this week, I noticed a pair of teenage girls getting into their car next to the spot I was pulling into. Initially, there was nothing remarkable about them that would stick in my memory. That changed. The each opened their door and took a shining can of diet coke out of their car and set it in the parking lot. Then they closed their doors and slowly drove away. I picked up the cans and made eye contact and asked them, “Can I please throw these away for you?” They simply pretended to look through me and kept driving.

The best part of the story is that they were driving a Prius. I’m so glad they have real concern for the environment.

I’ve followed Larry Lessig’s writing on the topic of copyright for sometime. I share his concern about the RO (read-only) aspects of culture forced on us by the extension of copyright laws beyond their original intentions. If you would like more info, I suggest you check out a speech he recently made at TED.

Even if esoteric points of copyright law are not interesting to you, consider watching the video as a great example of how to do a presentation. It’s so spare and zen like, yet the words on the screen serve to completely enforce all the points that Larry makes. I would love to take my game up to that level some day.