I think we’re living in a fantastic world. Every day I keep wading through deep intellectual debate about the leading front of technology, operational and legal issues affecting society at large.

To me its like being a kid in a candy store.

Sites such as Youtube, Flickr, blogs, and new age media are completely changing the way people need to think about rights protection, and I think its a great debate to follow for anyone interested.

Viacom recently sued Google’s Youtube for $1B in damages claiming that the website creates a tool that induces copyright infringement — the actual infringement happens when someone uses copyrighted music on their videos without paying royalties.

But should they be paying royalties to begin with as long as the derived work is being used for non-commercial purposes? I think its time for a media licensing scheme similar to the open source licenses.

To catch up to the debate, read about the Youtube lawsuit in the news, and then read some good arguments here and here. You can also read a fantastic paper on the subject by edge-centric strategy expert Umair Haque here – that will tell you the problem with property rights and the innovations that are needed.

Oh and for licensing, Creative Commons Licensing is the rising star with the potential of opening up rights protection. It is good to see even some local online magazines (aah lost the link) adopt it as well.

More on this later.