When discussing the Internet these days, the term Web 2.0 will often be used. I want to write something about content on the Internet, copyright, licenses and sharing, but then I have to explain why this is more relevant than ever before. I have to explain how Web 2.0 works.

First of all: Web 2.0 is not a new version of anything on the Internet. Appearing around 2004O'Reilly - what is Web 2.0Wikipedia.org - Web 2.0, it described web pages, or even web applications, that allowed for an interactive user experience. That means: the users get to interact with each other, or change the content of the page. There is in fact not any new technology behind the 2.0, only a new and better way to use what we have always had.

What is new?

10 years ago, before all the great pages we take for granted today existed, you usually browsed the Internet and read articles. There was not a great deal of interactivity, and the content was served to you from a static web page. Figure 1 shows how few content creators would share with many users. This was about to change.

Today, the Internet is a totally different place. Everyone can contribute to the content by uploading images, video and audio, and writing blogs and wiki's. This is done through AJAX, a way to use PHP, Javascript and XML to send data from the client to the server without having to refresh the whole page. Fig. 2 shows how many computers work together to change the Internet. This page uses AJAX in the News-section and when posting comments. Since many web pages today have to communicate, standards for how data is formatted are being developed, such as XML. This means that web pages can easily share data, and we get Google Maps, with Flicker photos on it.

So what is the problem?

All this is great, and I love the way the Internet is today: ever-changing, new interesting content every second, and I love to write blogs such as this one. The problem is that when everyone can upload content, it is difficult to know if that person were allowed to upload said content. I can insert any photo I want in this blog, but it would be against the law if the owner of the photo doesn't allow it. The last years has changed the web, and today every site needs to think about copyright, licenses and whether they are allowed to show this content. Sites such as YouTube and Flicker spends a great deal of resources on making sure that they only host content they are allowed to have.

In conclusion

Web 2.0 is a coined term to describe a new way of using existing technology. It involves two-way communication between the client and the host. This has led to an explosion of user-content. Content is king, so that is good, but the lack of control leads to copyright infringement, and that is bad.