Last week Counterpoint, the British Council think tank, published the “Cloud Culture, the future of global cultural relations” pamphlet by Charles Leadbeater. In it Charles charts the cultural impact that the web has had in the last 15 years and looks ahead to how cloud computing will influence cultural developments over the coming decades.

“We have the potential to make available more culture and ideas in more forms to more people than ever: a digitally enabled, cultural cornucopia…..

…Yet this possibility, a vastly enhanced global space for cultural expression, is threatened by intransigent vested interests, hungry new monopolists and governments intent on reasserting control over the unruly web.”

Charles outlines the following threats to a truly open cloud:

* Censorship and the Power of Government
* Copyright:Old Media Seeks Protection from the Storm
* Cloud Capitalists
* Unequal Access to the Cloud

A thought provoking report and well worth reading.