Walter Benjamin, a noted cultural scholar, suggests that the infinite reproducibility of the communication product ( CD, video, internet) due to its low marginal cost of duplication changes the nature of the work of art
Books, stories or photos may be copyrighted so they ‘belong’ to the author and no one may borrow or copy them without permission, attribution or payment
The high risk nature of entertainment ( so called hit rule) calls for imitation or ‘clones’ in popular culture ( riding the next so called fad or wave)
There are many pressures on ‘news’ or ‘entertainment’ manufacture for cutting corners on production: ethical standards to prevent recycling content and presenting it as original are weak– digital watermarking is a weak barrier
